NUCLEAR
ATOMIC ANXIETY
Atom watchdog sees greater nuke terrorism risk
'Dirty bombs' could be potent terror tool
China tests JL-2
UN warns on attacks against N-plants
Europe reviews nuclear plant safety, fears attack
India knows terrorism
US offers nuclear protection to Pakistan
Arrested Pakistani Atom Expert Is a Taliban Advocate
Japan's TEPCO says reactor on automatic shutdown
Japan says no leak at reactor after nearby fire
Bush Will Offer Nuclear Cuts to Sway Russia
U.S., Russia Not Close to Arms Deal
NEWHOUR Transcript nuclear plant security
ARKANSAS: NATIONAL GUARD FOR NUCLEAR PLANT
Missouri deploys guard to two nuclear facilities
Vit plant interests suspicious of DOE
Rep. Wants More Nuclear Plant Guards
Hill Presses For More Emergency Spending
White House knows of Pakistan aid to Taliban militia
Venezuela President Irritates Bush
Guinn spotlights waste accident scenario
Secret Yucca plan allegedly leaked
NRC probing possible leak of Yucca plan
Groups Seek Safer Storage of Spent Fuel
Feb. 28 deadline set to recommend Yucca
MILITARY
No pause in bombing for Ramadan month
U.S. to boost ground troops
Pentagon Changing Color of Airdropped Meals
Taliban spy web makes infiltrating difficult
Mission possible
Anthrax threat
Little progress made in search for source
Bush proposes criminalizing biological weapons
Experts delve into 'scary' new territory
Anthrax found at Pakistani newspaper
We Need Answers on Anthrax
Experts suggest anthrax scare may have upside
Mail anthrax now in Midwest
Tea houses for the ill to use medicinal marijuana
U.S. sees winter as advantage
Hawaii
ENERGY AND OTHER
Foggy San Francisco sets sights on solar power
UK sees wind power undercut fossil fuel in 20 yrs
UK launches 3 million pound solar energy scheme
Wellstone strikes back after his veterans bill stalls
States: Ohio, Pennsylvania
FBI issues warning of threat to coastal bridges
FBI: Questions about hijackers' identities resolved
National Guard troops may protect Capitol buildings
Bush: America 'on the hunt' against terrorism
Turkey's promise of troops bolsters coalition
Turkey Helps With Hopes of Payback
In Overheard Calls, Terrorists Spoke of Major Attack
Guardsmen Patrol Calif. Bridges
Dhaliwal won't back down from concerns over terror bill
Chretien, MacAulay defend disclosure of potential terrorist threat
ACTIVISTS
Dateline Transcript available: Nuclear Plant Security on
Yucca Mt. UNLV Town Hall Meeting
Yucca Mt. Alert - Price-Anderson Vote
Nevada
GREEN PARTY CIVIL LIBERTIES OUTRAGE/POLITICAL ATTACK
Firefighters Protest at Ground Zero
Activist: Keep weapons out of space
ALERT! Price-Anderson in House; Senate Energy Bill
-------- NUCLEAR
ATOMIC ANXIETY
A Warning From an Official About an Increased Possibility of Nuclear Terror
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
November 2, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/international/02NUCL.html?searchpv=nytToday
HAMBURG, Germany, Nov. 1 - The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States have increased the chances that terrorists might try to use nuclear weapons or materials, or attack nuclear power plants, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned today.
He spoke after Pakistan said it had detained three of the country's leading nuclear scientists for questioning in connection with concerns in the United States that nuclear weapons technology could have found its way into the hands of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an order restricting airspace around nuclear power plants, saying that terrorists could attack them to cause public panic. The United States appeared to be following the example of France, which earlier had ordered the deployment of antiaircraft missiles around a major reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel at La Hague.
Today's warning, by Muhammad el-Baradei, the director general of the agency, was issued on the eve of a conference in Vienna called to discuss nuclear safeguards and ways to combat nuclear terrorism. Since Sept. 11, experts in numerous countries have begun looking afresh at earlier studies largely ruling out the use or acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists.
Mr. Baradei, an Egyptian citizen and a lawyer by training, said in a statement: "We are not just dealing with the possibility of governments diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs. Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property, and even cause injury or death among civilian populations."
"The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before Sept. 11," Mr. Baradei said.
His message was addressed not only to the five formally declared nuclear powers - China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States - but also to India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which are either known to possess nuclear weapons technology, or are believed to have them.
Reports that some terrorist groups, particularly Mr. bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, had tried to acquire nuclear material was a "cause of great concern," he said.
He said the agency's experts believed that the "primary risks" of a terrorist nuclear attack could involve the theft of fissionable material from reactors or an attack or act of sabotage intended to release large quantities of radioactivity into the environment. But he said the danger also existed that terrorists would either obtain the materials to build a nuclear weapon or would succeed in buying or stealing nuclear weapons.
Given the difficulties involved in building or acquiring a nuclear bomb, he said, terrorists could also use radioactive materials from nuclear reactors, medical devices or other sources to construct a radiological bomb, sometimes called a dirty bomb, by putting the radioactive material around an ordinary explosive and detonating it.
In a paper to be presented at the Friday conference, George Bunn, an expert on nuclear safety from Stanford University, said the September attacks, in which commercial aircraft were rammed into buildings, posed a "much larger threat than civilian nuclear security systems are generally designed to deal with."
The mandate of the agency, which is the United Nations body for monitoring nuclear programs and is based in Vienna, does not extend to nuclear weaponry, and Mr. Baradei voiced concern about safeguards in India, Pakistan and Israel.
"Although I understand there is a high level of security for nuclear weapons," he said, "I hope that all of these countries are urgently reviewing the safety and security of their nuclear weapons."
Pakistan has been caught up in a nuclear arms race with its neighbor and archenemy, India. The Pakistani government, which leads the world's second most populous Islamic nation with 140 million people, has been struggling to contain public anger over government support for the American military strikes in Afghanistan.
Mr. Baradei noted that Pakistani nuclear safeguards appeared to be sufficient, though he said: "If there were a breakdown in the civil order, of course, you have worries. But so far I think they are under proper control."
He played down the likelihood of terrorists being able to produce a nuclear bomb. To do so, he said, would require obtaining 25 kilograms, or 55 pounds, of highly enriched uranium or eight kilograms of plutonium.
"While we cannot exclude the possibility that terrorists could get hold of some nuclear material," he said, "it is highly unlikely they could use it to manufacture and successfully detonate a nuclear bomb." But he quickly added, "No scenario is impossible."
A significant danger, he said, was that terrorists could obtain nuclear materials or weapons from rogue scientists in places like Russia. With the end of the cold war, he noted, thousands of scientists and engineers involved in the nuclear programs of the former Soviet Union found themselves without work and with incomes drastically reduced. Moreover, he said, there were numerous reports, all unconfirmed so far, of the sale or theft of fissionable materials or nuclear weapons from the old Soviet arsenal.
According to agency figures, since 1993 there have been 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radioactive materials, he said. But only 18 of those cases involved small amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the fissionable material needed to produce a nuclear bomb.
Some of the proposals to be heard Friday include plans to strengthen international conventions on the safeguarding of nuclear materials. But experts said nuclear countries would generally be reluctant to admit new means of control.
Mr. Baradei said the agency would require an additional $30 million to $50 million annually to expand its surveillance programs to meet the terrorist threat.
---
Atom watchdog sees greater nuke terrorism risk
Louis Charbonneau,
REUTERS:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13081/story.htm
VIENNA - The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the ruthlessness of the September 11 attacks on the United States showed that an act of nuclear terrorism was "far more likely" than previously thought. "The willingness of terrorists to sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims creates a new dimension in the fight against terrorism," IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told journalists in Vienna this week.
ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based U.N. agency sets world standards for nuclear security, said the concern was no longer limited to the possibility of governments diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programmes.
"Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property and even cause injury or death among civilian populations," he said.
Experts from around the world have gathered at the IAEA's headquarters this week to discuss security. In the light of the September 11 attacks, they have added an extra session on Friday devoted solely to the issue of nuclear terrorism.
ElBaradei called on countries around the world to take a careful inventory of the security risks at their nuclear power plants and other facilities and to spend the money necessary to ensure that they can prevent or withstand terrorist attacks.
Although there are no confirmed cases of terrorists using a nuclear weapon, ElBaradei said there was concern at reports that some militant groups had attempted to acquire nuclear material. These included al Qaeda, the group run by Osama bin Laden and blamed by Washington for the attacks on the United States.
Since 1993, there have been 175 known cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in other radioactive sources, such as those used for medical or industrial purposes.
But only 18 of these cases have actually involved highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the material needed to produce an atomic bomb. The IAEA believes the quantities involved to be insufficient to construct a nuclear explosive device.
"However, any such materials in illicit commerce and conceivably accessible to terrorist groups is deeply troubling," ElBaradei said.
He said countries with nuclear weapons programmes should review the safety and security of their weapons, even though the technical complexity of operating sophisticated nuclear weapons should preclude misuse were terrorists to acquire one.
The nuclear weapon programmes in the five Nuclear Weapons States - China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, as well any that may exist in India, Pakistan and Israel, the three countries outside the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) known to have nuclear programmes - are not subject to IAEA safeguards.
"Although I understand there is a high level of security for nuclear weapons, I hope that all of these countries are urgently reviewing the safety and security of their nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said.
"There have been two nuclear shocks to the world already - the Chernobyl accident and the IAEA's discovery of Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons programme. It is vital we do all in our power to prevent a third."
WEAKEST LINK
The IAEA estimates there has been a six-fold increase in nuclear material in peaceful programmes worldwide since 1970.
There are 438 nuclear power reactors around the world, 651 research reactors, of which 284 are in operation, and 250 fuel cycle plants, including uranium mills and plants that convert, enrich, store and re-process nuclear material.
Additionally, tens of thousands of radiation sources are used in medicine, industry, agriculture and research.
While the level of security at nuclear facilities is generally considered to be high, the IAEA believes the security of medical and industrial radiation sources is disturbingly weak in some countries.
"The controls on nuclear material and radioactive sources are uneven," said ElBaradei. "Security is as good as its weakest link and loose nuclear material in any country is a potential threat to the entire world."
While the IAEA is concerned about the threat of nuclear terrorism, ElBaradei said it would be easy to exaggerate the consequences of an attack on a nuclear plant.
"Nuclear facilities are perhaps the strongest, most robust industrial structures in the world," he said, though he added that none had been designed to withstand the kind of attacks that brought down New York's World Trade Center.
He said the soundness of nuclear facilities had been demonstrated in U.S. experiments in which a military jet was slammed into a concrete and steel structure identical to that of a nuclear power plant. The structure held.
Nevertheless, security at all nuclear plants must be kept tight. "After September 11, we realised that nuclear facilities - like dams, refineries, chemical production facilities or skyscrapers - have their vulnerabilities," ElBaradei said.
"There is no sanctuary any more, no safety zone."
---
'Dirty bombs' could be potent terror tool
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011102-75538528.htm
NEW YORK - Terrorists may not be able to make a functional atomic bomb, but they can acquire enough radioactive material to kill civilians and create panic with hybrid weapons, the United Nations' top nuclear regulatory body warned yesterday.
These so-called "dirty bombs" are made by spiking a conventional explosive with low-level radioactive material obtained from the black market or even stolen from hospitals, dumps or factories. These weapons don't pack the punch of a nuclear weapon, but the psychological toll and contamination they wreak would be considerable, said officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear-terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," Mohammed El-Baradei, director-general of IAEA, told an international group of nuclear analysts yesterday in Vienna, Austria.
The U.N. agency is seeking an additional $30 million to $50 million annually to expand its counterterrorism programs.
The IAEA is the nuclear watchdog agency charged with regulating the safety and security of nuclear power plants and other nonmilitary atomic sites. It has 132 members, 2,200 employees and an annual budget of $330 million.
Nuclear power plants vary in quality around the world, the agency said, but most are robust enough to withstand natural disaster and - especially in the industrialized world - acts of sabotage or terrorism.
"Now we are seeing terrorists that are not afraid to lose their own lives," said Gustavo R. Zlauvinen, the IAEA representative in New York, who added that it would be difficult to protect against attack by an airplane, as occurred in the September 11 strikes in New York and Washington.
Hundreds of specialists now are convening in Vienna for a weeklong seminar on the threat of nuclear terrorism.
In a world filled with uncountable - and often unpoliced - radiation devices, IAEA officials warn that terrorists have a variety of options for obtaining radioactive material.
Radioactive material can be found in hospital X-ray machines; it also is used in cancer treatment.
Commercial food-processing plants use radiation to kill bacteria before canning or freezing.
Used fuel rods and nuclear waste are sitting in dumps that may not be guarded scrupulously.
In addition, an unknown amount of research and military equipment is thought to be floating around "orphaned" by the collapse of the Soviet Union. These sites are not under international regulatory control.
"Now we have to face a new threat. There is no limit to the intent [of some] groups to use any type of tool, machine or technology to commit horrific acts and to bring terror, destruction and death," Mr. Zlauvinen told reporters yesterday.
To illustrate the havoc a dirty bomb can wreak, IAEA officials pointed to Goiania, the Brazilian city that in 1987 was contaminated by thieves who inadvertently stole a 20-gram capsule of highly radioactive cesium-137.
The curious material was cut up and passed around. In all, four persons died, 85 houses had to be destroyed and more than 125,000 drums of contaminated soil, clothing and other effects had to be carted away.
Specialists warn that the dirty bomb is the most likely nuclear terrorism scenario. They say it is nearly impossible for nongovernmental actors to get their hands on the estimated 17 pounds of plutonium or 60 pounds of enriched uranium necessary to build such a weapon.
Even if they did, the precise calibration that goes into making the material detonate properly is beyond all but the most sophisticated laboratories.
However, specialists allowed that stealing a weapon or its components is possible, especially in unstable regimes.
Mr. Zlauvinen yesterday refused to comment on reports that Pakistan, which tested its own nuclear devices three years ago, might be a source of hardware or weapons for terrorist groups.
However, he did note that Pakistan had not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and was not a member of the IAEA. He said that the agency had no advisory or regulatory role in Pakistan, except to inspect a few nuclear power plants built with Canadian assistance.
-------- china
China tests JL-2
November 2, 2001
Inside the Ring,
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011102-91545607.htm
China's military is moving ahead with its major strategic nuclear forces buildup. U.S. intelligence officials said the latest element was a test of the new JL-2, a submarine-launched version of the DF-31 road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.
U.S. intelligence monitors in Asia spotted a "pop-up" test of the JL-2 from a specially modified Chinese Golf-class diesel submarine. The test simulated the first step in a submarine-launched ballistic missile firing, ejecting the missile from its tube. In an actual launch, the missile's engine would be ignited after clearing the tube.
The test took place two weeks ago in an area off the coast of north-central China, the officials said.
The JL stands for Julang or "Great Wave," and the missile has a range of about 5,000 miles. It will be deployed aboard China's newest ballistic missile submarine, known as the Type 094. Deployment is expected in the next several years. The missile will probably incorporate U.S. missile and warhead technology that was obtained by China through espionage, and legal and illegal technology transfers.
"As we risk our lives saving the world - and China - from terrorism, China still finds the resources to build new missiles to be aimed at us," said Richard Fisher, a China specialist with the Jamestown Foundation. "Let's be clear, the JL-2 will be targeted at Los Angeles, not bin Laden."
-------- europe
UN warns on attacks against N-plants
From Derek Scally, in Berlin -
November 2, 2001
Irish Times
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/1102/wor2.htm
US: Attacks against nuclear power plants and other acts of nuclear terrorism are "far more likely" than ever before, the UN nuclear agency has warned.
The threat of terrorists stealing plutonium to build nuclear bombs has been eclipsed by terrorists willing to hijack planes and "sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims".
"Planes are bigger than ever before with more fuel on board, and terrorists are prepared to kill themselves, turning a plane into a weapon of mass destruction," said Ms Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna-based agency which sets world standards in nuclear security.
The world's leading experts on nuclear terrorism meet in a special session today at the end of a four-day conference in Vienna organised by the IAEA.
"After September 11th, we realised that nuclear facilities - like dams, refineries, chemical production facilities or skyscrapers - have their vulnerabilities," said IAEA director general, Mr Mohamed El Baradei. "There is no sanctuary anymore, no safety zone." The US has imposed no-fly zones over its nuclear power plants while France has installed surface-to-air missiles near the nuclear plant at Cap la Hague. The British government says it is examining similar proposals, but Germany has already rejected the French and American approaches.
"Do you really believe anybody is capable of deciding within two minutes whether a charter aircraft carrying 200 vacationers to Majorca simply strayed from its flight path or needs to be shot out of the sky?" asked Mr Juergen Trittin, the Environment Minister.
Security has been stepped up around Germany's 19 nuclear power plants and extra soldiers have been drafted in to guard spent nuclear fuel as it is transported by rail to France for reprocessing.
Environmental group Greenpeace said that radiation released from an attack on a German nuclear power plant could kill as many as 4.8 million people. The government rejects these claims and has commissioned its own study.
Concern in Germany has centred around the Biblis nuclear power plant, only five minutes by air from Frankfurt Airport, continental Europe's busiest airport.
Despite the new danger posed by hijacked planes, the IAEA says that the most likely form of nuclear terror remains the theft of nuclear material such as plutonium by terrorists to manufacture nuclear weapons.
"It is highly unlikely they could use it to manufacture and successfully detonate a nuclear bomb," said Mr El Baradei.
The U.S. government has repeatedly declined to comment on speculation that the Saudi dissent Osama Bin Laden is in possession of nuclear weapons.
----
Europe reviews nuclear plant safety, fears attack
Dominique Magada,
Reuters:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13080/story.htm
LONDON - European governments say they are reviewing security measures at civil nuclear installations amid fears they could be the next target of terrorist attacks, but they remain vague on what action they have taken.
Additional pressure to improve security came from the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday, when Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said an act of nuclear terrorism was far more likely than previously thought and concern was no longer limited to secret nuclear weapons programmes.
ElBaradei called on countries around the world to spend the money necessary to ensure that their nuclear plants could withstand terrorist attacks.
Although the majority of European countries with substantial nuclear power production say they are reviewing security measures in light of the September 11 attacks in the United States, they are reluctant to say exactly what they are doing.
So far, it is not clear to what extent security has been improved in countries like Britain, Germany, Russia and France, which produce a large amount of their electricity from nuclear plants.
WASTE REPROCESSING PLANTS
Reprocessing plants such as BNFL's Sellafield plant in Britain and French Cogema's plant at La Hague in Normandy are said to be particularly prone to attack because reprocessing creates a higher level of radioactivity.Both plants process nuclear waste from a number of countries. BNFL, which also runs nuclear generating plants, declined to comment on improvements in security but said it had put in place whatever measures were required by the nuclear watchdog, the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS).
"We do what we're told by our regulator. For security reasons, we cannot give details of measures taken," said a BNFL spokesman.
The Department of Trade and Industry, which handles press inquiries for the OCNS, was no more specific.
"We've always applied the stringent international rules on nuclear plant safety. We've taken the extra threat on board and are reviewing security at installations," said a DTI spokesman.
He declined to say whether additional measures had been taken since the September 11 attacks on the United States, but confirmed that no military equipment, such as ground-to-air missiles, had been put in place.
"That's not to say it's not being looked at," he said.
Pressure to improve security measures at Sellafield was intensified last month after a European Union report said an accident at the plant could cause greater damage than the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine in 1986, which exposed more than five million Europeans to increased levels of radiation.
Nuclear power accounts for 27 percent of Britain's overall electricity generation.
So far, only the French government has said it has taken drastic measures to strengthen security at nuclear facilities.
Two weeks ago, the French defence ministry announced it had deployed ground-to-air missiles near the plant at La Hague as a precaution after the hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.
It also said it was prepared to use warplanes to shoot down hijacked aircraft and boosted security around key sites such as nuclear plants, industrial zones and large dams. It did not give further details of measures it had taken.
France is Europe's largest nuclear power producer, its 19 nuclear power sites producing 76 percent of its electricity.
In Germany, where nuclear power accounts for one-third of national needs, Environment Ministry spokesman Martin Waldhausen said power companies had tightened plant security after the September 11 attacks, but no extra security measures had been ordered recently because there were no indications of a threat.
A debate began last month on whether to switch off old German nuclear plants sooner than initially planned after the Commission on Nuclear Reactor Safety (RSK) said in a report that older nuclear plants could not withstand a suicide plane crash.
In Russia, where concern has focused more on military nuclear targets, the government said it was not aware of a specific threat to civil installations.
"As for civilian facilities, there has been no threat because our security is tight enough. We have always maintained tough security - and we have increased the number of Interior Ministry troops patrolling the area," said Yuri Bespalko, spokesman for the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry.
In Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, extra measures including a ban on flights over nuclear plants were implemented days after the September 11 attacks.
-------- india / pakistan
India knows terrorism
November 2, 2001,
Washington Times Embassy Row
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011102-8478855.htm
The war on terrorism will top the agenda when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee meets President Bush in Washington next week.
"We have faced terrorism for the last 20 years. ... Sixty thousand Indians have lost their lives," Indian Ambassador Lalit Mansingh told editors and reporters at The Washington Times yesterday.
"We know what terrorism is ... and what a terrible enemy it is to fight."
The "priority is the war on terrorism," he explained, describing the agenda being developed for the first face-to-face meeting between the Indian leader and the American president on Nov. 9.
Mr. Vajpayee will also work to build on the improvements in U.S.-Indian relations begun under President Clinton, Mr. Mansingh added.
The visit is "not just in the context of September 11 but in the new relationship we are developing," he said.
Mr. Vajpayee will also emphasize the stability of the world's largest democracy and its reliability as a strong U.S. ally in southern Asia, the ambassador said.
The prime minister's trip will follow visits here by his national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and a visit to India by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell - all since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Mr. Mansingh said the prime minister will also discuss plans for the rebuilding of Afghanistan and express his concerns for the stability of Pakistan.
India and Pakistan are long-time regional rivals, and India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism against it. But both now possess nuclear weapons, and India fears that the weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic militants if the current Pakistani government collapses.
"We can only pray for the stability of Pakistan," he said.
Mr. Mansingh said India and the United States are the victims of the same type of terrorism. India accuses Pakistan of supporting terrorism in Kashmir and in the northeast corner of the country. It also faces attacks from militant Sikhs in Punjab.
"There is no difference from the terrorism the U.S. is facing and the terrorism we are facing," he said, referring to the link between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network and certain levels of the Pakistani government.
He rejected comparisons between terrorists and freedom fighters.
"Terrorism cannot have any qualifications," he said "It is like a cancer in the body. ... You must stamp it out."
------
US offers nuclear protection to Pakistan
The Pawtucket Times;
United Press International.
November 02, 2001
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=2586404&BRD=1713&PAG=740&dept_id=226968&rfi=6
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov 02, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The United States has offered to teach Pakistan how to protect its nuclear weapons and Pakistan has accepted. Quoting Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar, Pakistani newspapers reported Friday that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made this offer when he visited Islamabad last month.
According to Sattar, Powell invited Pakistan to send its experts to the United States to "see how Americans protect their weapons."
Asked about Pakistan's response, he said: "Positive offers are not turned down, at least not from friendly countries."
Recent reports in the U.S. media have expressed concerns about the security of Pakistani nuclear weapons. Some reports suggested that Muslim extremists could get these weapons if the ongoing campaign against President Pervez Musharraf gets out of control.
Over a dozen Muslim religious organizations are protesting Musharraf's decision to back U.S military strikes into Afghanistan, urging him to support neighboring Muslim nation's Taliban leaders instead.
Although still small, the rallies have grown bigger since Oct. 7 when the United States launched military strikes into Afghanistan because Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Quoting official sources, some newspapers reported that the Bush administration was concerned that the agitation may get worse and lead to the collapse of the Musharraf government.
They also reported that U.S. and Israeli special forces were already conducting joint exercises to take out Pakistan's nuclear weapons should the Musharraf government collapse.
Dismissing these reports as "baseless fears," the Pakistani foreign minister assured that Pakistan's "nuclear weapons already are in secure hands."
He said that Pakistan has "a concrete control and command center for its nuclear weapons and nobody except those responsible for their security has access to them."
Earlier this week, Pakistan received unlikely support for its position on this issue. Addressing a seminar in New Delhi, India's Defense Minister George Fernandes said Wednesday that "politics aside, we believe Pakistanis are responsible people and quite capable of defending their nuclear assets."
Both India and Pakistan tested their nuclear devices in May 1998 and since then have been working on various programs to develop control and delivery systems.
----
Arrested Pakistani Atom Expert Is a Taliban Advocate
November 2, 2001
New York Times
By DENNIS OVERBYE and JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/international/02BOMB.html?searchpv=nytToday
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a nuclear engineer who was one of three Pakistani scientists arrested last week because of their suspected connections with the Taliban, is an expert on nuclear weapons production, but also a fundamentalist Muslim with unorthodox scientific views, scientists familiar with the Pakistani scientific circles said today.
During more than 30 years in Pakistan's nuclear program, he pioneered construction of plants to produce enriched uranium and plutonium for Pakistan's small but growing arsenal of atomic weapons. But as a subscriber to a brand of what is known to practitioners as "Islamic science," which holds that the Koran is a fount of scientific knowledge, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood has published papers concerning djinni, which are described in the Koran as beings made of fire. He has proposed that these entities could be tapped to solve the energy crisis, and he has written on how to understand the mechanics of life after death.
"He seems to have played a very important role in the whole spectrum of the Pakistani program of plutonium production and uranium enrichment," said David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, who described him as "just the kind of guy who could help provide shortcuts on building nuclear weapons or creating a nuclear weapons capability."
Other experts stressed, however, that Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood, an outspoken admirer of the Taliban, could not by himself help either the Taliban or Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorists build an actual nuclear weapon.
"If he were to just cross the border and set up shop in bin Laden's caves, that's not going to get them a bomb," said Robert Sherman, director of the Strategic Security Project of the Federation of American Scientists.
American intelligence officials have said that, while the reporting is sketchy, there is no evidence that either the Taliban or Al Qaeda have obtained nuclear weapons. But they said Al Qaeda, which has enjoyed the Taliban's protection since Mr. bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1996, has made repeated efforts to buy fissionable material that could be turned into a bomb.
One such effort was documented last February in the Manhattan trial over the bombings of American embassies in East Africa in 1998. Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a former close aide to Mr. bin Laden who pleaded guilty and testified for the government, described his own role in a 1993 attempt by Al Qaeda to buy uranium for $1.5 million.
Mr. Fadl, a Sudanese member of Al Qaeda, testified that he was sent by one of Mr. bin Laden's advisers to meet an intermediary near Khartoum, and was shown a cylinder, apparently from South Africa, which the man said contained the uranium.
Mr. Fadl testified that he told the man that Al Qaeda was "very serious" about the purchase, but acknowledged that he had no idea whether the deal ever went through.
Several American intelligence analysts have said that they are not certain whether the United States has a firm grasp of how much progress, if any, Al Qaeda has made toward building a nuclear bomb or a weapon that could spread radioactive material. Whether Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood has imparted any of his knowledge to the Taliban or Al Qaeda is also unclear.
Little is known in the West about his background. He is believed to have studied engineering in England, according to Dr. Zia Mian, a Pakistani physicist at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School.
He came to prominence as an engineer in the 1970's when he worked out a technique for detecting leaks in steam pipes at a Canadian-built reactor, the Karachi nuclear power plant, in Pakistan.
Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood went on to spearhead the development of the Kahuta plant near Islamabad, which, according to a 1992 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has the capacity to produce about 100 kilograms of enriched uranium a year, enough for half a dozen bombs.
Pakistan exploded its first atomic device in May 1998, responding to a similar test by its archrival India just days earlier.
Until last year, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood was thought to be in charge of another installation, the Khushab reactor, which Western experts believe produces weapons- grade plutonium. He was forced to retire last year as a result of his outspoken opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, said Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani nuclear physicist and professor at Quaid- e-Azam University in Islamabad.
In an interview last year with The Financial Times, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood said he opposed the treaty on the ground that Pakistan needed to carry out test explosions to develop peaceful uses of atomic energy.
Since retiring, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood has had a high profile in Islamabad science circles. "He has been going around giving talks, meeting with university students and faculty, going to schools, colleges, wherever there are people who will listen to him, and arguing that the Taliban are the way, that they show the way for Pakistan," Dr. Hoodbhoy said. He also helped found the Holy Koran Foundation, and traveled to Afghanistan doing what he said was charity work.
Pakistan is believed to have fewer than 20 nuclear bombs. They probably have an explosive power similar to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and like that weapon, use highly enriched uranium-235 as their fuel.
Western sources believe the Pakistani bombs weigh about 1,500 pounds and are intended to be delivered by an F-16 jet, according to Robert S. Norris, a researcher and analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a think tank that opposes nuclear proliferation.
According to Dr. Mian of Princeton, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood was replaced as head of the uranium enrichment program by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is generally identified as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. (Uranium enrichment is the process by which weapons-grade uranium is purified from natural uranium ore.) According to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dr. Khan worked at a uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands in the early 1970's and later brought information about that technology with him to Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Dr. Hoodbhoy and Dr. Mian said, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood remained an influential figure in the program.
Dr. Hoodbhoy said that President Pervez Musharraf's support of the American campaign against the Taliban had caused "deep cleavages" in the Pakistani military, scientific and government circles and there was a danger that the government could lose control of parts of the highly secretive nuclear program.
"I think the chances of an entire weapon being carted off are rather remote," he said. Much likelier would be the loss of the uranium core, he said. If that was stolen, experts and other materials would be required to reassemble that into a bomb.
Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood could not make a bomb for the Taliban by himself or even smuggle one or materials for one out of Pakistan, an effort that would require a large number of people. But, Dr. Hoodbhoy said, "He knows quite a bit and people like him are important."
Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood could be a general consultant and guide to the black market, according to Rodney W. Jones, president of Policy Architects International in Reston, Va., a defense consulting firm.
It was in the 1980's that Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood emerged as a proponent of "Islamic science," espousing among other things that djinni could be tapped to solve the energy crisis. He published a book called "The Mechanics of Doomsday and Life After Death."
"I think that if we develop our souls, we can develop communication with them," Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood said about djinni in The Wall Street Journal in an interview in 1998. "Every new idea has its opponents," he added. "But there is no reason for this controversy over Islam and science because there is no conflict between Islam and science."
In his own book, "Islam and Science, Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality," and in interviews, Dr. Hoodbhoy has severely criticized Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood's theories and the notion of Islamic science in general, calling it "ludicrous science."
In a letter published in Dr. Hoodbhoy's book, however, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood protested that Dr. Hoodbhoy misrepresented his views. "This is crossing all limits of decency," he wrote. "But should one expect any honesty or decency from anti-Islamic sources?"
-------- japan
Japan's TEPCO says reactor on automatic shutdown
REUTERS:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13089/story.htm
TOKYO - Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc said a 1.1 gigawatt (gW) nuclear reactor, which was in the process of resuming operation after a regular maintenance shutdown, halted operations automatically early yesterday.
TEPCO said there was no radiation leak as a result of the incident at the Fukushima No. 2 power plant's No. 2 reactor in Fukushima prefecture.
The company said had been in the process of restarting the facility when operations were halted automatically by equipment monitoring neutrons.
The cause of the shutdown, which took place at 1:05 a.m. (1605 GMT Wednesday), was under investigation, the company said.
TEPCO, Japan's largest power company, supplies electricity to Tokyo and the surrounding region.
Nuclear power accounts for about one-third of Japan's electricity needs.
----
Japan says no leak at reactor after nearby fire
REUTERS:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13085/story.htm
TOKYO - No radiation leaked from an experimental nuclear reactor near Tokyo as a result of a fire at a nearby maintenance facility late this week, the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute said.
The fire was put out at about three hours after it started at a maintenance facility near the Joyo experimental fast-breeder reactor in Ibaraki Prefecture, the JNC said yesterday.
"Monitoring equipment around the site has not shown any irregularly high readings of radioactivity...and we are investigating the cause of the fire," a spokesman for state-run JNC. There were no injuries in the incident.
Parts and equipment from the reactor are taken to the building for repairs, the spokesman said.
Joyo, in the process of having its capacity increased to 140 megawatts from 100 megawatts, is one of three experimental reactors run by JNC, none of which is currently operating.
JNC is spearheading the nation's fast-breeder reactor programme - a technology first conceived in the 1960s with the objective of using plutonium recycled from uranium fuel.
Most Western countries have abandoned similar programmes due to technical difficulties and costs.
France, which depends roughly 75 percent on nuclear power for its electricity, closed its Superphenix fast breeder in 1998.
Nuclear energy supplies about a third of Japan's electricity needs, and the nation has stuck to its fast breeder programme.
ACCIDENTS STALKS JNC
Wednesday's fire was the latest in a string of incidents to hit JNC's development efforts.
The company's prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju, at Tsuruga, 400 km (250 miles) west of Tokyo, has been shut since it suffered a massive sodium coolant leak on December 8, 1995.
The spokesman said yesterday that JNC was working towards restarting Monju but no timetable had been set.
An accident at JNC's Fugen advanced thermal reactor on April 15, 1997, leaked radioactive tritium.
The reactor, which is also undergoing maintenance, is due to be scrapped after operations are halted in 2003.
These accidents and others, one of which resulted in the death of two workers at a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in 1999, have increased public distrust of the nuclear industry and undermined Japan's efforts to build more nuclear reactors.
-------- missile defense
MISSILE DEFENSE
Bush Will Offer Nuclear Cuts to Sway Russia
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGER
November 2, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/international/02ARMS.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - President Bush will decide in the next few days how deeply to slash America's nuclear arsenal as part of a new understanding with Russia on missile defense and strategic nuclear arms, officials said today.
Together with economic incentives for Moscow, the reductions in nuclear arms are intended to be an inducement to the Russians to accept the Bush administration's program to test and develop antimissile defenses - which are prohibited by the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
A leading option under consideration, according to senior administration officials, is to reduce the American nuclear force to a range of around 1,800 to 2,250 warheads, from current levels above 6,000.
The president's final decision on the cuts is expected to be included as part of a broad package of strategic and economic incentives that Mr. Bush hopes to present to President Vladimir V. Putin when he arrives here later this month.
White House officials confirmed today that Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has made a series of calls around Capitol Hill in hopes of arranging a quick vote on revoking the main economic sanction against Russia remaining from the cold war.
That measure, the 1974 Jackson- Vanik Amendment, was intended to pressure Communist-bloc nations to allow free emigration, particularly in the case of Russian Jews trying to leave. The law has not been applied to Russia in years.
But Mr. Bush wants to announce this month that Russia and a host of former Soviet republics will be "graduated" from the entire process of being reviewed annually to be granted normal trading status. That step would also help pave the way for American approval of Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Congress permanently exempted China from the law last year.
American officials are touting these actions as signs of a new relationship with Moscow. But to forge those ties, Mr. Bush also appears to be modifying his own positions.
He needs Russian cooperation in the war against terrorism and the attacks on Afghanistan. The result is that few in the administration are now talking about withdrawing from the ABM treaty any time soon, despite Mr. Bush's oft-repeated claim that the treaty is outdated and dangerous.
Other stances have changed: the Bush administration is markedly more reserved on the question of Russian use of force in Chechnya despite previous American concerns that civilians were being hurt by indiscriminate Russian attacks.
While Mr. Bush has repeatedly indicated as a candidate and president that he favors deep cuts in the country's nuclear arsenal he has never said how many weapons he plans to eliminate. At a briefing for reporters today, Ms. Rice said nothing about the nuclear cuts, other than repeating the administration's position that it would not engage in negotiations over a new arms control treaty.
"We really believe the old arms control agreements in which you had to match warhead for warhead, system for system, ignoring geography, ignoring history, ignoring the threats around you, was the old way of thinking about this," she said.
Other administration officials said that Mr. Bush would make a unilateral declaration of how deeply he hoped to cut the American stockpile, and that the administration expected Mr. Putin would do the same. "This may not be on paper," one administration official said. "It doesn't have to be."
That alone is a huge change. By avoiding negotiations on limits that apply equally to both sides, the Bush administration is breaking with the cold war tradition in arms control, which made parity between the superpowers the paramount consideration. Moreover, if there can be an agreement without a treaty, there is nothing for the United States Senate to debate or approve.
But first Mr. Bush must resolve differences within the Pentagon about how deep those cuts should go.
The second strategic arms reduction treaty, Start II, which has never legally taken effect, called for reducing armament levels to around 3,000 to 3,500 warheads. President Bill Clinton and President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia agreed that their goal should be to cut the number of warheads on each side to 2,000 to 2,500 under a proposed Start III accord.
The Bush administration may go somewhat lower. The primary option under review is to set a range for the United States at around 1,800 to 2,250 warheads, officials said.
Some in the administration would like to lower the upper end of the range, to make the cuts more significant and thus to differentiate the Bush administration's policy from Mr. Clinton's arms control goals.
But the United States Strategic Command, which oversees the nuclear arsenal, is resisting deep cuts and says the country needs to maintain an arsenal at the high end of that band, officials said.
Since the Russians face severe budgetary pressure, their arsenal is expected to be smaller than that of the United States. Russian officials, for example, have said the number of nuclear warheads they have is likely to shrink to 1,500. But if the Russian total is higher, the Bush administration may have to rethink its approach.
The arms reductions would be made over a 10-year period under provisions for on-site inspection outlined by Start I.
Some former Clinton administration officials said the reductions the Bush administration is considering are less significant than advertised. That is because the Bush administration is adopting a new procedure for counting weapons in which strategic submarines and bombers that are being overhauled will not be included, a break with past arms control treaties.
This change in the counting will reduce the official tabulation of nuclear weapons by about 250 warheads without actually eliminating a single weapon.
"It sounds like the Bush team may not have overcome the institutional resistance to lower numbers that the Clinton administration encountered," said Steven Andreasen, the director of defense policy and arms control for the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.
Arms control advocates said the reductions being considered by the White House are not nearly as deep as they had hoped. "They are not sensible cuts for the end of the cold war," said Bruce G. Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information. "Those numbers imply a requirement to prepare for the possibility of a large-scale nuclear war with Russia, which is not a plausible scenario."
A Bush administration official asserted, however, that the reductions projected now were the product of a review that took a fresh look at the nuclear force. He defended the decision not to count submarines and bombers in the overhaul, saying officials have decided it is not sensible to count what he termed "phantom arms."
Ms. Rice's calls to Congress this week to take Russia off the list of countries that are affected by the Jackson-Vanik amendment was another step in the direction of integrating Russia more fully into the West.
"We'd have to do it anyway to get Russia into the W.T.O.," one administration official said. "Putin wants Russia off the list, and by doing it we can declare victory, say `it worked,' and move on," the official added.
Getting Russia into the World Trade Organization, however, will be a far more complex problem, involving extensive negotiations about opening Russia's markets. It is unclear whether Mr. Putin is willing to pay the political price - especially if entry into the W.T.O. forces Russian industry to face global competition.
The third element of the administration's package to encourage an agreement with Mr. Putin is a new position on defensive systems. Instead of abandoning the ABM treaty, as many conservatives have advocated, the Bush administration now appears to be proposing a phased approach
During the first phase, it appears, Russia would permit the United States to go ahead with testing - but not deployment - of its antimissile system. But it would do this by amending, but not abandoning the ABM treaty.
This approach would enable the Pentagon's antimissile defense program to go forward while partially satisfying the Russians, who insist that the ABM treaty is the bedrock of arms control.
-------- russia
U.S., Russia Not Close to Arms Deal
By Vladimir Isachenkov
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; 9:20 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29416-2001Nov2?language=printer
MOSCOW -- President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not expected to sign a new arms control treaty during their summit this month and no deal has been reached yet on missile defense, Russia's foreign minister said Friday.
"The question of the signing of a broad agreement on strategic stability isn't on the agenda" of the Nov. 13-15 summit, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters in the Kremlin.
Ivanov's statement echoed comments from U.S. officials, who indicated that any understanding reached later this month during Bush's talks with Putin in Washington and at the president's Texas ranch would probably not take the form of a formal treaty, with strictly scheduled arms reductions.
Weapons reduction and missile defenses top the agenda, with progress on weapons cutbacks outpacing missile defense so far, according to U.S. officials.
The goal of talks that took place in Washington on Thursday and were scheduled in Moscow this weekend is a warheads cutback of about two-thirds, with each country limiting itself to no more than 1,750 to 2,250 strategic warheads, a senior White House official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Having just returned from Washington, Ivanov said that the two countries were conducting "difficult consultations on offensive and defensive strategic weapons."
Asked about a report that Putin and Bush were expected to sign an agreement allowing U.S. tests intended to develop a national missile defense system that would contradict the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Ivanov said "it's premature to speak of such accords."
Bush would like to get Putin's agreement for the United States to conduct tests forbidden by the ABM treaty, but U.S. officials have said that the missile defense plan would continue one way or another.
Russia has staunchly opposed the U.S. missile defense plan, saying it would upset strategic stability. At the same time, it has pushed for cuts from the approximately 6,000 warheads the United States and Russia each have now to as little as 1,500-2,000 for each country.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Subject: NEWHOUR Transcript nuclear plant security
From: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@home.com>
The NewsHour
November 2, 2001, Friday
Transcript
FOCUS - NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS
JIM LEHRER: Now, more on the safety of the nation's nuclear facilities. Betty Ann Bowser has been looking into that.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Just one hour after the terrorists struck on September 11, the federal agency responsible for safety at nuclear power plants puts its emergency operations center on its highest state of alert. Since then, emergency crews, seen here in a drill, have been working 24 hours a day, and are in constant touch with the FBI and the military. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, also put the nation's 103 nuclear reactors on their highest state of alert.
RAY GOLDEN, San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant: We have essentially locked down the facility. The gates are manned with armed security officers. The only people getting in and out are employees with positive photo identification.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Now, the Coast Guard is patrolling waters around nuclear power plants. The National Guard is on duty in at least eight states. State police are also pitching in. And earlier this week, 126 general aviation airports close to nuclear power plants were effectively shut down when the FAA ordered small aircraft not to fly near or over nuclear power plants. But even with all this heightened security, long-time critics of the NRC are concerned. Congressman Ed Markey thinks a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant has been a very real possibility for more than ten years.
REP. ED MARKEY, (D) Massachusetts: If the terrorists were successful in hijacking another plane, then flying one into a nuclear power plant would be a relatively easy task for them to achieve. Depending upon which direction the wind was blowing, everyone that was in the path of the radioactive plume would be exposed to a danger that could run anywhere from death to serious long-term illness for every single individual.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Markey says it would be even more devastating than the world's worst nuclear energy accident in 1986 at Chernobyl. 15 years later, hundreds of miles of land around what was once the nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union are still uninhabitable. Markey wants the NRC to make the owners of the nuclear plants that supply 20% of the nation's electricity to completely revamp security procedures and hire more guards. NRC Chairman Dr. Richard Meserve says the agency has done everything reasonable it can to protect American nuclear plants. But he's not sure that any of them could withstand a September 11 type of attack involving a big airplane with a full load of fuel.
RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: This was a wake-up call, September 11, for all of us about the kind of world we live in and the threats that exist.
But let me say I think the real crucial question is, if they were able to do it, what would the consequences be? That is something that has not been evaluated previously. It is an evaluation that we are undertaking. I can say that nuclear power plants are built with very heavy and robust structures. They have thick walls of reinforced concrete. They have redundant safety equipment. So I think that, although we have not done the evaluations, there are features of nuclear power plants that are very favorable in terms of their capacity to be able to respond to such an event without there being undue public hazard.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Is it not correct, sir, that the NRC has said since September 11 that our plants were not designed to withstand the impact of an attack like that?
RICHARD MESERVE: That's correct.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: And you stand by that statement?
RICHARD MESERVE: Of course, of course. They were not... They were not designed. This was viewed as a very improbable event to occur, and so it wasn't one of the design criteria. In that, of course, we're similar to most other infrastructure in the United States: The white House, the Pentagon, the capitol, chemical plants, refineries also were not designed to withstand an aircraft attack of the type that we saw on September 11.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Ralph Beedle, senior vice President of the nuclear industry's trade association, does think the plants could survive a terrorist attack from the sky.
RALP BEEDLE, Nuclear Energy Institute: The public can be pretty confident that these plants are designed to contain the radioactive material. I am confident that containment would withstand the crash of a large commercial aircraft and protect the core to the point that you would not have a radioactive release.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But it's not just the nuclear reactor that might be compromised in the event of a terrorist attack. Another major area of concern: These pools containing used-up fuel rods. Once the rods are no longer able to generate electricity, they remain radioactive for 10,000 years. So at all of the nuclear power plants, they have been stored in pools of water that keep them from heating up and spreading radiation contamination. David Lochbaum is a nuclear engineer with the union of concerned scientists, a watchdog agency.
DAVID LOCHBAUM: If you were able to drain the water out of the pool that Houses the reactor fuel, the fuel would overheat and either melt down or catch on fire, releasing its radioactivity to the atmosphere and the winds would carry it to whoever is downwind.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: And the rods are also stored at 13 power plants that have been decommissioned or closed down, where critics say security by the NRC is lax.
DAVID LOCHBAUM: I think the biggest vulnerability still is not the operating plants but the plants that have been permanently shut down. At the plants that have been permanently shut down, security is basically been turned down to bare bones minimum. If a terrorist were to get access to this material and cause it to be dispersed into the atmosphere with an explosive of some sort, the government had studies done last year that shows it would be the... in terms of damage to the public, it would be the equivalent of a ten kiloton bomb going off, atomic bomb.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Chairman Meserve says security at the nation's decommissioned plants has been increased dramatically.
RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: We certainly do worry about spent fuel pools, just as we worry about reactors and other kinds of facilities. And the concern you have for a spent fuel pool is if somehow all of that water were to disappear, and then the fuel could heat up and then you might have an event that you'd certainly be worried about. But they then present a rather difficult target for an airplane, that you'd have to imagine that somehow the airplane is going to come into a... Collide into a pool in a fashion that can rupture the wall of four or five feet of reinforced concrete-- a difficult attack.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: What can you tell us about increased security at those facilities?
RICHARD MESERVE: Well, for understandable reasons, I can't go into the details, but there are enhanced guard capabilities and controls on vehicles and things of that nature.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But equally disturbing, say NRC critics, is the industry's record with force-on-force drills. Those are the NRC's unannounced simulated terrorist attacks like this one recorded at a nuclear power plant a few years ago. Again, Congressman Ed Markey:
REP. ED MARKEY: Over 40% of all the tests, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission applies to the nuclear industry are flunked by the nuclear industry in terms of security against terrorist attack. The American people want... should want, and I think do want, the tests to be toughened, for the standards to be increased so that there's a reduction in the likelihood that any terrorist attack, much less 40% of them, could be successful.
RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Where we found problems we required... Immediately required that corrections be in place. I mean, I take some satisfaction from the fact that we found failures. We were giving hard tests and we were hard graders and we were requiring corrections. We were doing this before September 11. I think everyone in government is now recognizing that terrorists may have greater capabilities than we had expected before September 11, and we'll have to reexamine this issue, and the Commission is certainly going to do that.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: The NRC is doing a multimillion-dollar study of the impact of an airplane attack, and they are revising something called the design basis threat, which specifies what kind of a terrorist attack every nuclear plant operator is required to defend itself against. Meanwhile, Congressman Markey today asked the administration to put the National Guard on duty at all active and decommissioned plants and arm the with antiaircraft weapons.
Tom Clements
Nuclear Control Institute
1000 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 410
Washington, DC 20036
tel. 1-202-822-8444
fax 1-202-452-0892
clements@nci.org http://www.nci.org
-------- arkansas
ARKANSAS: NATIONAL GUARD FOR NUCLEAR PLANT
New York Times
11/2/01
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/national/02BRFS.html?searchpv=nytToday
Gov. Mike Huckabee activated a unit of the National Guard to bolster security at the state's only nuclear plant after the plant's owner, the Entergy Corporation , asked for help. Neither Mr. Huckabee nor the company gave a specific reason for the move. The plant is in Dardanelle, about 60 miles west of Little Rock. (NYT)
-------- missouri
Missouri deploys guard to two nuclear facilities
Reuters
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13079/story.htm
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Missouri Gov. Bob Holden yesterday ordered Army National Guard troops deployed at two nuclear power facilities in the state, saying he was acting on a request from Washington that security as such installations be stepped up generally.
"While there have been no specific threats against any nuclear facilities in Missouri, I believe it is prudent to send National Guard troops to boost existing security measures after this week's alert from the Justice Department about the potential for another terrorist attack," he said.
Holden also said that Tom Ridge, the national homeland security director, had asked governors to increase security at nuclear plants.
The troops were being sent to the Callaway nuclear plant near the town of Fulton, a facility owned by Ameren Corp and to a reactor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
This week Guard troops were deployed at four nuclear power stations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi at the request of Entergy Corp, the nation's third-largest power generator. It also said it asked for the military back-up as a precaution during the heightened state of alert.
Last month similar action was taken at three Entergy nuclear plants in New York and Massachusetts.
In Wichita, Kansas, the regional health department ordered 2 million doses of antibiotics to be ready in case anthrax infections break out, and roadways around McConnell Air Force Base there have been closed in response to terrorism concerns.
The Air Force base is home to refueling tankers and B-1B bombers.
-------- us nuc politics
Rep. Wants More Nuclear Plant Guards
Updated: Fri, Nov 02 10:31 PM EST
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/011102/22/int-attacks-nuclear-plants
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Edward Markey, a vocal critic of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asked President Bush on Friday to immediately station National Guard units at all operating or decommissioned nuclear reactors to improve security.
Markey, D-Mass., said the United States was in an "absurd situation," with the U.S. Coast Guard defending reactors near waterways but no comparable military force defending the plants by land.
"Right now, we know that the nation's 103 currently operating reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attacks," Markey said at a news conference Friday.
Nuclear power plants, already on high alert, have ratcheted up security even more in light of this week's new terrorist alert. At least 10 states are using National Guard troops to help secure reactors. They are Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
But Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and the NRC have left the decision on using the military up to the states, although Ridge suggested in a conference call with the governors on Monday that they consider added police protection at nuclear and other energy plants.
Federal officials and nuclear industry spokesmen have emphasized that there has not been a specific threat against any of the country's reactors.
Markey said it's inadequate to leave such a decision up to the states. He said the federal government should deploy Guard units with anti-aircraft weapons to reactors.
Many of the 31 states with nuclear plants have reported increased police presence at reactor sites, but most governors have not felt a need to use national guardsmen.
----
Hill Presses For More Emergency Spending
Aid for New York Among Proposals
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27418-2001Nov1?language=printer
The White House is facing bipartisan demands in Congress for the removal of the $40 billion ceiling on emergency spending related to the Sept. 11 attacks, with members seeking increases for everything from border guards and FBI agents to New York subway repairs and controls on Russian plutonium.
The House Appropriations Committee yesterday delayed consideration of the Bush administration's latest $20 billion spending request until next week, to give aides time to assemble a substantially larger package. That would put the total designated for the emergency well above $40 billion when combined with previous commitments.
"There's no doubt we need more money for the military and homeland security," said Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who chairs the panel. Young said there was a "strong consensus" on the need for spending increases in a number of areas, though top Republican leaders have not yet signed on.
In the Senate, Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) has suggested adding $20 billion for the emergency items to an economic stimulus package working its way through Congress. Yesterday morning, New York's congressional delegation met with Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. to present proposals to bring federal aid to the state up to the $20 billion promised by President Bush.
The New York package includes more money to assist the tourism industry, and repair subways and utility lines; funds for extended medical benefits for people who have lost their jobs; and money for hazardous-material removal.
Officials said if the war in Afghanistan continues at its present pace, the Pentagon could exhaust its 2002 operating budget by January, nine months before the end of the fiscal year. When the United States fought the Gulf War in 1991, much of the cost was paid for by European and Middle East allies, but that is not the case now.
House aides said both parties are growing frustrated with what is perceived as the hard-line fiscal position adopted by Daniels, who has insisted that the $40 billion should be adequate to cover needs over the next few months.
He has not ruled out supplemental requests next year, and has argued that it is a mistake to rush into new spending commitments without setting priorities and thinking through a long-term approach to the terrorism threat.
But many senior members contend the White House's budget request is inadequate.
Young said that the White House budget office has "shortchanged the FBI rather seriously, which is on the front line of homeland defense."
Democratic aides suggested that the administration is out of touch with gaps in homeland security and the stresses that the crisis has imposed on dozens of departments and agencies.
They said additional funds are urgently needed by intelligence agencies, the Customs Service, the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among others. Coast Guard shore radars are so scattered that parts of the East Coast are uncovered and could be penetrated by terrorists in fishing vessels, one source said.
The security of ports handling liquefied natural gas tankers and container ship traffic also is a concern.
In other areas, the White House turned down a $500 million request by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to upgrade state laboratories responsible for handling and analyzing bioterrorism agents, and rejected the bulk of the Treasury Department's $585 million request to improve security along the border with Canada, sources said.
Yesterday, Young said he would consider adding to the House spending list a proposal by Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.) to increase by $131 million an Energy Department account that funds oversight of Russian nuclear materials, including pellets, fuel and weapons parts.
Edwards said in remarks on the House floor yesterday that there have been 14 seizures of highly enriched uranium stolen from Russian nuclear sites since 1992.
----
White House knows of Pakistan aid to Taliban militia
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-22061210.htm
Senior Bush administration officials acknowledged yesterday that Pakistan is supplying covert military assistance to the Taliban militia, but they praised Islamabad's cooperation in the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign.
"There is no question but that countries bordering Afghanistan have long histories and relationships and contacts across borders," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "And all I can say is I don't doubt for a minute that there are people in any number of those countries who have relationships and dealings across borders that are unhelpful to us."
Administration officials sidestepped direct comments on the covert military support and whether it is hampering U.S. efforts to oust the ruling Taliban militia.
But Mr. Rumsfeld and other officials sought to highlight official Pakistani government cooperation for U.S. military operations in the region.
The defense secretary commented on a report in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times that said the Taliban militia is getting military and other supplies covertly from Pakistan.
U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the support includes ammunition and fuel and is being sent with the help of elements in the Pakistani military and intelligence service.
India's ambassador to the United States, Lalit Mansingh, said yesterday that Pakistan is permitting material to be smuggled across its border with Afghanistan to support the Taliban.
"We have been saying this all along," Mr. Mansingh told reporters and editors at a luncheon interview at The Washington Times. "You can't help the United States in the fight against the Taliban in the daytime and then help the Taliban at night."
U.S. officials said intelligence reports showed that the military goods, ammunition and fuel were being shipped to Afghanistan by trucks at night. One major supply route is the highway between Quetta, Pakistan, to the border town of Chaman and then to Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold.
Mr. Rumsfeld said that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his government "are very much allied with us in this effort and have been enormously supportive and helpful."
"To suggest that [the covert military support] is a conscious effort on the part of the government would be a misunderstanding of the situation," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who leaves today on a trip to Russia and possibly Pakistan and Uzbekistan, said he would not disclose what he might discuss with Gen. Musharraf "if and when I go."
Asked about the covert Pakistani military aid to the Taliban, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said at the White House that U.S. officials have had discussions with the Pakistani government on the issue.
"We believe we're getting very good cooperation with the Pakistanis, and that they are doing what they can to avoid the situation you are talking about," Miss Rice said.
The administration is "in constant discussion" with Pakistani officials and "they've had a number of high-level visitors lately."
"They will have more high-level visitors very shortly," she said, in an apparent reference to the trip to the region by Mr. Rumsfeld.
At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said the Islamabad government is trying to curb the covert military supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban. "We have every indication that the Pakistani government would be trying to avoid anything like that happening," Mr. Boucher said.
Mr. Rumsfeld also was asked about reports that Pakistani authorities are holding one or two nuclear weapons scientists who are suspected of having ties to the al Qaeda terrorist group.
"I've seen those reports," he said. "The short answer is, we know of certain knowledge that al Qaeda has, over the years, had an appetite for acquiring weapons of mass destruction of various types, including nuclear materials. That's a fact, and am I concerned about it? Of course. Any terrorist network that ends up acquiring weapons of mass destruction, as I've said on other occasions, is a danger to the world, a real danger to the world. Those weapons have the capability of killing many more than thousands - into the hundreds of thousands of people."
Mr. Rumsfeld said that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal appears to be under the secure control of the Pakistani government.
Mr. Boucher also said that toppling the Taliban regime will take a long time but that one goal of the U.S.-led military campaign is to see the Islamic extremist militia ousted.
"I think we've been quite clear, the secretary has been quite clear, the president has been quite clear: There's no place for the currently constituted Taliban movement in the future government of Afghanistan, that Taliban leadership that has harbored al Qaeda and these terrorists on Afghan soil needs to be brought to justice or have justice brought to them, as the president said," Mr. Boucher said.
----
Venezuela President Irritates Bush
By Alexandra Olson
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; 12:29 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30355-2001Nov2?language=printer
CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez has irritated Washington with his refusal to adhere to America's "with us or against us" ground rules for the war on terror, but officials insisted Friday that bilateral ties were strong - despite the temporary recall of the U.S. ambassador.
Chavez has criticized the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan, and held up photos of dead Afghan children during a Monday television appearance, calling the airstrikes a "slaughter of innocents."
Although Chavez said he was merely echoing a position held by Pope John Paul II and some other world leaders, Washington responded sharply, temporarily recalling U.S. Ambassador Donna Hrinak.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker called Chavez's remarks "totally inappropriate."
Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila said Hrinak's recall "should be considered a normal and routine event that occurs between states which have good relations." Hrinak is expected to return to Caracas on Nov. 7.
There was no indication that Venezuela planned to recall its ambassador to Washington, said Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel.
Venezuela, a major oil supplier to the United States, has emphasized that it can both endorse the battle against terror and criticize U.S. conduct.
"To call for an end to the war, to advocate causes, to attract attention to the need in this case that innocents don't keep dying - I believe these are not reasons for irritating anyone," Davila said.
Chavez promotes a world order in which no single power dominates international politics and economics. Venezuela says that policy does not constitute anti-Americanism, and has pledged to share intelligence in the anti-terror effort.
After meeting with Davila on Wednesday, Hrinak said Venezuela remained a "partner" in the struggle to destroy Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.
"I think the word 'partner' says a lot," she said.
But some observers say Washington's reaction revealed a waning patience with Chavez, a populist leader who has forged close ties with Cuba, visited Iraq's Saddam Hussein as a leader of a fellow oil producing state and bars U.S. anti-drug aircraft from Venezuelan skies.
"The world has changed a lot since Sept. 11, and Chavez has less maneuverability to say what he wants," said Elsa Cardoso, head of International Relations Graduate Studies at the Central University of Venezuela.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- washington
Vit plant interests suspicious of DOE
Hanford News
Fri, Nov 2, 2001
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/1102-2.html
The Department of Energy's upper echelons are talking about tinkering with Hanford's tank waste glassification spending and goals.
That has spooked most of Hanford's political universe.
Tri-City and Northwest Hanford interests, including Tri-City DOE officials, don't know what the intentions are at DOE's headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Throughout 2001, DOE's Washington, D.C., leadership has been either closed-mouthed or has displayed ambivalence on meeting its legal obligations on nationwide nuclear cleanup.
"This is awkward because we haven't heard what was really discussed," said Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board. The board met Thursday and continues today in Richland.
The 32-member board represents most Hanford constituencies -- each with its own grapevines leading to Washington, D.C. Thursday's meeting boiled with rumors, clues, speculations and suspicions about DOE's headquarters considering if it wants to change parts of the project to build a complex to convert Hanford's tank wastes into a benign glass.
"We're getting strange vibrations from DOE," said Mike Wilson, the state Department of Ecology's nuclear program manager.
"I think (DOE in Washington, D.C.) is looking seriously at slowing down the project," said board member Pam Brown, Richland's Hanford analyst.
The Hanford board plans to send a pre-emptive letter to DOE to request it keep the legal glassification deadlines intact through 2011 as the federal agency reviews the overall program.
Two factors appear to cause DOE's headquarters to look over the glassification project.
One is DOE's new leadership conducting a "top-to-bottom review" of all cleanup programs, including glassification. Due to be done by Dec. 31, this review is to be DOE's springboard for trying to conduct nationwide cleanup cheaper and faster.
The second factor is DOE looking at Hanford's glassification project beyond 2010, said Steve Wiegman, a senior technical adviser to DOE's Office of River Protection.
Right now, DOE's master plan is to build two glassification plants -- one for high-level radioactive waste and one for low-level waste. DOE is legally obligated to begin glassification in 2007 with both plants running at full speed from 2011 through 2018 to glassify 10 percent of the site's tank wastes.
Several years from now, DOE is supposed to start a second phase -- building bigger plants to glassify the remaining 90 percent by 2028.
The problem is that the second phase is still plotted under the privatization concept, which DOE discarded in 2000 when it fired BNFL Inc. and hired Bechtel to run the first phase. The current long-range plan calls for DOE to spend $3 billion to $5 billion a year in the second phase. With glassification barely able to get $690 million for 2002, a $3 billion annual appropriation appears unlikely, Wiegman noted.
So DOE is recalculating its long-range plans. It is unknown if those new calculations will push glassification beyond the 2028 deadline.
Harry Boston, manager of DOE's Office of River Protection, is to brief the board this afternoon on what is known so far.
Wiegman said a couple of proposals are being discussed in upper DOE circles but was unsure how seriously they are being considered.
One is to see if some of Hanford's 53 million gallons of tank wastes can be reclassified so they won't have to be glassified. A less radioactive waste possibly might be mixed with grout or a cheaper glass or plastic material. Another idea is to keep some wastes inside some tanks without glassifying them.
Many Hanford interests are suspicious -- mainly because they are scared the 2007 and 2011 glassification deadlines could be jeopardized.
"One problem with talking blue sky issues is everyone in the stakeholder organizations is standing on a ledge and yelling the sky is falling when we're just having discussions," Wilson said.
However, Wilson said the state is "very cynical" about DOE looking at changing glassification goals, especially since past glassification proposals have fallen through. And the state is "nervous" about DOE discussing not treating tank wastes, he said.
The state plans to sue DOE if it cannot show it can make up a 15-month delay in the project to make the 2007 deadline.
-------- us nuc waste
Guinn spotlights waste accident scenario
Letter cites analysis of train tunnel fire, nuclear casks
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By KEITH ROGERS
Friday, November 02, 2001
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-02-Fri-2001/news/17359334.html
Gov. Kenny Guinn this week sent to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid a letter stressing the importance of a new study into potential effects from a fire in a train tunnel involving nuclear waste shipments headed to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
The study, based on summer's Baltimore tunnel fire, analyzed the consequences from a similar fire involving a steel cask containing about a ton of spent nuclear fuel.
"Due to the duration of the fire and the extremely high temperatures, the accident would have resulted in a significant release of radiation from the transportation container," Guinn said in his letter to Reid, D-Nev., on Wednesday.
The July 18 rail accident in Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel caused a fire that burned for five days and was hot enough -- up to 1,500 degrees -- to breach a large rail cask of spent nuclear fuel.
If such an accident happened, clouds of radioactive particles, including cesium isotopes, would be released out of the ends of the tunnel and carried by winds, according to the recently completed study by Radioactive Waste Management Associates. The New York consulting firm was hired by Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency.
The study, written by Matthew Lamb and Marvin Resnikoff, used data from the July 18 accident, including the fire's temperature, its duration, weather conditions, surrounding population figures and land-use patterns.
Yucca Mountain Project officials said they had not seen the study and could not comment on it.
Lamb and Resnikoff estimated that some 390,388 residents in the Baltimore area would be exposed and that between 4,972 and 31,824 related cancer deaths would occur in 50 years.
Cleanup costs would be $13.7 billion if varying levels of contamination spread over some 33 square miles, including four square miles of heavy contamination, if a nuclear waste cask had been engulfed in the fire, they concluded.
In the Baltimore tunnel fire, rail cars glowed because temperatures were so hot. One firefighter described the cars as "a deep orange, like a horseshoe just pulled out of the oven," the study said, citing a story in the Baltimore Sun.
The study assumed that half of all radioactive particles released would attach to nearby surfaces "and are therefore not part of the airborne release estimate." Shortly after the Baltimore tunnel fire, Reid added to an appropriation bill an amendment that requires the Department of Transportation to analyze the risks of moving hazardous materials on bridges, tunnels and highways; make recommendations for safety improvements; and ensure that emergency response teams are prepared.
The measure passed 96-0, but Congress has not finalized it.
"We need to know the risks of haz-mat (hazardous material) accidents before, not after, they happen," Reid said in introducing the measure in July.
This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-02-Fri-2001/news/17359334.html
---
Secret Yucca plan allegedly leaked
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001
From: "L.V. Citizen Alert" <lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net>
Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository Secret Yucca plan allegedly leaked Project's review process at stake in investigation By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com> and Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com> LAS VEGAS SUN Nov. 1, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials are investigating whether a confidential Yucca Mountain review plan was leaked by someone inside the agency to the Department of Energy.
The application for a license to bury 77,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste from the nation's defense activities and commercial power plants at Yucca Mountain is scheduled to be submitted by the DOE to the NRC sometime next year.
If the NRC's guidelines for reviewing the application were indeed known by the DOE, it would give the department and its Yucca Mountain contractor an advantage in preparing the application.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said a leak of the Yucca review plan could be a violation of federal law.
A leak also would indicate an inappropriately close relationship between license applicant -- the DOE -- and license reviewer -- the NRC, Nevada officials said.
A leak "would seriously undermine the credibility of both the NRC and DOE and likely is in violation of NRC and DOE rules and applicable laws," Reid said in a letter to the NRC sent Wednesday.
Yucca Mountain is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and is the only site in the country being considered for burial of the high-level nuclear waste.
The NRC's Inspector General's office launched an investigation of the suspected leak in Washington "about a week ago," NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said today. Investigators are due in Las Vegas in the "near future," Gagner said.
Gagner would not comment on whether a leak had occurred.
"The investigation will examine that," Gagner said.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said two reliable sources have said someone at the NRC first leaked the Yucca review guidelines to Winston & Strawn, the international law firm hired by the Department of Energy to complete $16.5 million in legal work on the Yucca Mountain project.
The law firm allegedly then gave the guidelines to its client, DOE officials at the Yucca Mountain project office in Las Vegas, Loux said.
The DOE is the manager of the Yucca project, a first-of-its kind proposal to bury the nation's nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain must meet NRC approval before it is constructed.
A call to Winston & Strawn's Washington office was not returned today. Neither was a call to the firm's New York public relations agency, The Dilenschneider Group.
Loux said he hopes an investigation also would uncover whether the DOE's primary contractor, Bechtel SAIC Co., and other nuclear industry officials now have the document.
Yucca Mountain project spokespersons in Las Vegas said they did not know about anyone at DOE obtaining the NRC plans.
"I personally have not seen anything like that," Allen Benson, chief spokesman for the Yucca Project, said.
"I'll have to check into it, but we haven't heard a thing," Gayle Fisher, another Yucca spokeswoman, said late Wednesday.
Officials at the DOE and its chief Yucca contractor, Bechtel SAIC, also did not know investigators were soon arriving in Las Vegas, officials said.
Bea Reilly, a spokeswoman for Bechtel, on Wednesday said she had just left a meeting with both project officials and attorneys and no one had mentioned the investigation or document.
"It was fairly quiet, nothing much is happening," Reilly said.
At issue is a document commonly called a "standard review plan." The NRC routinely draws up the plan before licensing a new facility, such as a nuclear power plant or low-level waste site. The plan is developed internally -- in private -- at the NRC. The plan would include procedures that NRC staffers would use to decide whether a facility meets certain criteria.
Eventually, before the NRC licensing review process begins, the five-member commission votes to publish the plan. But the Yucca standard review plan is still in development, so it should not yet be outside the NRC.
The leak would be significant because ultimately the NRC as an impartial, independent agency is responsible for deciding whether Yucca is a safe place to bury the nation's nuclear waste, now piling up at 103 nuclear power plants nationwide.
NRC officials have said that reviewing the DOE's Yucca proposal would be a complex process that could take several years. The NRC would license and regulate the waste site if it is constructed.
If the DOE and Bechtel SAIC have obtained the NRC's internal game plan for reviewing the Yucca proposal, it would put the DOE and its contractor in a better position to prepare an airtight proposal.
In theory, DOE or Bechtel officials also could launch a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to pressure the NRC to alter the review process, said Joe Egan, a Virginia-based attorney who works for Loux.
Loux received word of a possible NRC leak within the last week, he said. He promptly notified Nevada officials.
Reid on Wednesday sent his letter to NRC Inspector General Hubert Bell requesting an immediate investigation.
"By possibly releasing this License Review Plan, the NRC may have significantly diminished its impartiality," wrote Reid, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the NRC. "I urge you to investigate this matter immediately and take any necessary corrective action."
Loux said his sources said NRC investigators are due in Las Vegas as early as today. The NRC's Gagner confirmed that two investigators are headed to Las Vegas, but would not say exactly when. She said the investigation was "high priority" for the NRC.
As to what prompted the investigation, Gagner would only say "the agency received information." Gagner said it was not clear how long the investigation could take.
Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and private attorneys hired by the state also are seeking evidence of the leaked document, Loux said.
"The state has always maintained that the DOE and the NRC's relationship was cozy," Loux said. "If this is true, it is really the NRC that is the culprit here."
DOE and contractor scientists have collected a massive amount of scientific data at Yucca after years and $8 billion worth of study. The DOE is developing a final recommendation for President Bush about the site, due in the next few months.
Loux argued that if the DOE has obtained the NRC's review plan, the state also should have a copy.
But Loux hasn't been able to get it. Loux sent Egan to get a copy last eek. But Egan was unsuccessful.
Egan today said a credible source at the NRC told him that "it's not out yet, no one has it and no one is supposed to have it." Still, Egan firmly believes a leak has occurred, although he would not compromise his other sources, he said.
Former senator and governor Richard Bryan, now a member of the state Commission on Nuclear Projects, called the alleged NRC leak "inappropriate" and showing "bias" in the licensing process.
Winston & Strawn is already under investigation by the DOE Inspector General for its relationship with the pro-Yucca Nuclear Energy Institute. The Sun in July reported that the law firm, which since 1999 has been reviewing the Yucca license application for the DOE, also lobbied for NEI in favor of Yucca Mountain.
Nevada officials say the firm's former relationship with a pro-Yucca lobby group and its work for DOE creates a conflict of interest. -- Kalynda Tilges Nuclear Issues Coordinator Citizen Alert - Las Vegas P.O.Box 17173 Las Vegas, NV 89114 702-796-5662 702-796-4886 Fax lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net http://www.citizenalert.org
CITIZEN ALERT -- "A Voice For The Land And People Of Nevada"
--------
NRC probing possible leak of Yucca plan
Nevada officials allege document given to DOE
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Friday, November 02, 2001
By STEVE TETREAULT
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-02-Fri-2001/news/17363628.html
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating whether an internal document was leaked to Energy Department officials to help them prepare a license application to bury nuclear waste in Nevada.
The NRC is sending two members of its inspector general's staff to Nevada to begin checking the allegations, agency spokeswoman Sue Gagner said Thursday.
Gagner said the NRC launched its probe last week after receiving information about the matter. She would not disclose the nature or source of the information.
"This is a high-priority investigation," Gagner said.
The agency is pursuing allegations, aired publicly this week by Nevada officials, that a draft of the NRC's license review plan was given by someone within the agency to a lawyer for Winston & Strawn, a firm given a $16.5 million contract in 1999 to perform legal work on the Energy Department's anticipated license application to build and run a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The license review plan subsequently was given to officials within the Yucca Mountain Project, Nevada officials allege.
Bob Loux, head of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, said two sources within the Energy Department told him late last week the NRC document has turned up within the Yucca Mountain program within the past two weeks.
Joe Egan, an attorney working for the state of Nevada, said he tried to get a copy of the document from the NRC this week and was told it was not public. He said officials he spoke with did not seem aware that copies may be in circulation outside the agency.
NRC staff form review plans to set procedures the agency will use to judge license applications. When the plans are finalized, the five NRC commissioners make them available to all interested parties.
"If one side gets advance warning about procedures, it really affords that party the opportunity to lobby the commission and lobby the agency staff," Egan said.
Loux said if the allegations are true, it would indicate an improperly close relationship between the NRC as a regulator and the Energy Department as a license applicant.
Yucca Mountain Project spokesman Allen Benson said he could not comment on a matter being investigated by the NRC. He would not say whether the Energy Department is conducting its own review.
On Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to NRC Inspector General Hubert T. Bell, asking him to pursue the allegations. Reid's staff received a call Thursday letting them know an investigation already was under way, aides said.
Reid said a premature release of the license review plan "would seriously undermine the credibility of both the NRC and the DOE, and likely is in violation of NRC and DOE rules and applicable laws."
Egan said NRC leaks could amount to violations of the agency's rules of practice as well as professional codes that govern the affairs of attorneys.
"At the very least, this contributes to a loss of public confidence," Egan said.
There was no indication Thursday whether an investigation would cause delays in the repository program. Managers have said they expect Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to decide late this year whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a repository site. It is the only location being studied for placement of the repository.
Winston & Strawn had no immediate comment on the allegations.
The Energy Department already is investigating conflict of interest allegations involving the Chicago-based firm, which was registered as a lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-repository trade group, at the same time it was working for the department on Yucca Mountain matters.
The law firm ended its relationship with the NEI in July.
-------
THE ENVIRONMENT
Groups Seek Safer Storage of Spent Fuel
New York Times
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
November 2, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/nyregion/02MILL.html?searchpv=nytToday
MINEOLA, N.Y., Nov. 1 - For years, opponents of nuclear power have raised questions about the safety of spent radioactive fuel rods stored at plants around the country. And for years the response from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been the same: the threat of terrorism on American soil is too remote to make it a significant worry.
Now, a Long Island environmental group is raising the issue anew, arguing that the regulatory commission should reconsider the dangers posed by spent nuclear fuel in light of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The group says an attack on the spent fuel, which is less protected than the reactors themselves, could lead to a catastrophic fire that would release radioactive material - and that the possibility of such an attack is no longer remote.
The group, the STAR Foundation, joined with a coalition of Connecticut environmental groups today in filing a petition asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to re-evaluate the way used fuel is stored at the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford, Conn., on Long Island Sound.
"The threat of another terrorist attack on a U.S. facility is neither idle nor speculative, and the entire U.S. nuclear fleet has been advised to maintain a continuous state of high alert," the petition states. "The spent fuel pool at Millstone 3 is vulnerable to acts of malice or insanity." An attack, it said, could start a fire in the pool that "could contaminate thousands of square kilometers of land."
Even today, the authorities were given a scare when, shortly before 5 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration noticed that a private plane was flying within the restricted-fly zone established Tuesday above the Millstone plant and others. The North American Air Defense dispatched two F-16's, which escorted the plane to Hartford-Brainard Airport, said Dana A. Conover, chief of operations for Connecticut's Office of Emergency Management.
"Indications are that he was unaware that he was violating air space that was restricted," Mr. Conover said.
While the STAR Foundation's petition deals only with the Millstone plant, the issue affects most of the country's 103 active nuclear reactors and roughly 20 decommissioned ones. These reactors store their used fuel rods in what are known as spent fuel pools. The pools, filled with borated water, are surrounded by several feet of steel and concrete, inside buildings engineered to withstand an earthquake - but not a terrorist flying a large airplane, a fact that the commission has acknowledged.
"These plants really weren't designed to withstand acts of war, but in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, the chairman of the agency has ordered a top-to-bottom review of nuclear plant security measures," said Neil A. Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission. "Certainly the protection of spent fuel pools will be a part of that."
But representatives of the foundation said they were not comforted.
"The National Regulatory Commission doesn't always act in the best interests of the public - it more often acts in the best interests of the industry," said Scott M. Cullen, counsel to the group, which is based in East Hampton, N.Y.
The foundation maintains that the spent fuel pools may pose an even greater danger than the nuclear reactors, because a fire could start as soon as the water inside the pools, which must be kept cool, is heated.
The group advocates storing spent fuel rods inside concrete boxes known as dry casks, a significantly more expensive alternative. It is also urging the government to deploy anti-aircraft artillery near nuclear plants and pools.
While other anti-nuclear organizations have voiced concern over the safety of spent fuel pools since the Sept. 11 attacks, the STAR Foundation was able to file an official petition with the N.R.C. because the Millstone plant has an application before the commission to change the terms of its license.
Pete Hyde, a spokesman for Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which operates the plant, said the handling of the private-plane incident today showed that stricter safety measures were already being taken.
"This shows that we are vigilant," he said.
---
Feb. 28 deadline set to recommend Yucca
Las Vegas Sun
By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>
November 01, 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2001/nov/01/512562669.html
Congress has set Feb. 28 as the deadline for recommending Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository.
Congress ordered the DOE to complete an environmental impact study and deliver a site recommendation on whether the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is suitable for housing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.
In its recently passed budget, Congress allocated $375 million for the Yucca project. To date, $7 billion has been spent on the proposed repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
According to language accompanying the budget bill, further scientific and engineering work is necessary to address concerns raised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent panel of scientists overseeing DOE's work.
The NRC wants to know how fast ground water flows through the mountain, how much water is contained at the repository site 1,000 feet beneath Yucca's surface and has questions into the possibility of volcanic eruptions.
The federal studies would not stop if the site is recommended, but "if the site recommendation is negative, the conferees expect the department to terminate promptly all such activities and take the steps necessary to remediate the site," according to the budget bill.
DOE spokesmen had no comment on the budget, saying they needed time to review the language.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
No pause in bombing for Ramadan month
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-95698956.htm
The United States will not suspend attacks against Afghanistan on Nov. 17 for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan because "we can't afford to have a pause," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.
"This is an enemy that has to be taken on, and taken on aggressively, and pressed to the end," Miss Rice told reporters at the White House. "And we're going to continue to do that."
America's Muslim allies - including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Pakistan - have demanded a halt to U.S. strikes against Taliban targets during Ramadan because the continuing carnage would be an insult to Islam. But Miss Rice countered that the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11 made no effort to respect American sensitivities.
"We do not believe that al Qaeda or the Taliban or any of their kind are likely to be ones that are going to be observant of any kind of rules of civilization," she said. "They've never demonstrated that they were observant of any kind of rules of civilization before."
The decision to keep bombing through Ramadan is a significant change in policy from the previous administration, which in December 1998 announced it would bomb Iraq before the start of Ramadan. Critics said bombing was an attempt to divert attention from the impeachment of President Clinton that week.
"For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world," Mr. Clinton said at the time.
By contrast, Miss Rice said it is more important to vanquish terrorism than to tiptoe around religious sensitivities.
"We think that the best thing that we can do for the world, for all of the allies in the coalition - whether they are Muslim or not - is to make certain that this war on terrorism succeeds," she said. "And that means we have to finish the mission."
Miss Rice, who is considered President Bush's closest foreign policy adviser, emphasized that the terrorists were the ones to strike first.
"I just want to remind everybody this is an action in self-defense," she said. "The United States was attacked on September 11th with incredible brutality. We continue to be concerned about further attacks.
"We have no choice but to try to go both to the source of this in Afghanistan and to try to root these organizations out wherever we can," she added. "And we have to get about that business. We can't afford to have a pause."
Muslim nations historically have rarely halted their own military campaigns during Ramadan. For example, Egypt and Syria chose that month for their 1973 surprise Yom Kippur attack on Israel in what became known in the Arab world as the Ramadan War.
The Prophet Muhammad himself won the Battle of Badr during Ramadan in 624 and later mounted a military campaign to reclaim Mecca during the holy month. In recent decades, Lebanese, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians routinely waged war throughout Ramadan and sometimes even used the month as an occasion to intensify the bloodshed.
In addition to continuing the military campaign, the administration also is trying to beef up its defenses against anthrax and other biological weapons. To that end, Mr. Bush yesterday called for a strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which was signed by 144 nations.
"Since September 11, Americans and others have been confronted by the evils these weapons can inflict," the president said in a prepared statement. "This threat is real and extremely dangerous. Rogue states and terrorists possess these weapons and are willing to use them."
Miss Rice added that the administration wanted to "move toward a system of strengthening the convention that focuses on criminal activity and underground activity."
----
U.S. to boost ground troops
November 2, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011102-13959265.htm
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday the United States is expanding military support for anti-Taliban forces and is ready to send more ground troops into Afghanistan as spotters for bombers.
Mr. Rumsfeld also issued a statement defending the Pentagon's measured pace of the military bombing campaign to date.
The defense secretary said the bombing campaign, now in its fourth week, is moving ahead.
The action began relatively quickly since September 11, when "terrorists attacked New York and Washington, D.C., murdering thousands of innocent people - Americans and people from dozens of countries and all races and religions - in cold blood," said Mr. Rumsfeld.
On the use of U.S. ground forces, Mr. Rumsfeld said the deployment of special-operations commandos with opposition Northern Alliance troops has resulted in better coordination and more effective air strikes.
Meanwhile, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States will continue its bombing campaign in Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan because "we can't afford to have a pause."
"This is an enemy that has to be taken on, and taken on aggressively, and pressed to the end," Miss Rice told reporters at the White House. "And we're going to continue to do that."
Mr. Rumsfeld said that the military also is helping two other Afghan opposition groups that are part of the effort to oust the ruling Taliban militia, which controls about 90 percent of the country.
The number of U.S. troops on the ground is estimated by U.S. defense officials to be very low, and less than in the hundreds. The numbers should increase "three or four times" in the days ahead, said Mr. Rumsfeld.
"We have a number of teams cocked and ready to go; it's just a matter of having the right kind of equipment to get them there and the landing zones in places where it's possible to get in and get out," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the additional commandos will be involved in liaison with anti-Taliban opposition forces, communications, targeting and resupply.
Turkey's government, meanwhile, will send about 90 special-operations commandos to assist training of Afghan opposition forces.
Asked about the participation of Turkish forces, Mr. Rumsfeld said: "The campaign has been broadening almost every day."
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said bombing raids Wednesday focused on destroying command-and-control sites, including bunkers, tunnels and caves, as well as Taliban military forces. Eight targets were hit around Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar on Wednesday, and additional targets were bombed in several other areas around Afghanistan, using 55 tactical jets and bombers.
The Pentagon released gun-camera video for the first time showing guided-bomb attacks on a cave complex near Kabul. The al Qaeda terrorists and some Taliban militia are believed to be hiding from U.S. air strikes in some of the hundreds of caves located throughout the country.
Mr. Rumsfeld repeated for reporters that the objectives of the military campaign are to force the Taliban regime to pay a price for harboring terrorists, to obtain intelligence for future attacks against al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban militia and "to develop useful relationships with groups in Afghanistan that oppose the Taliban and al Qaeda."
The military operation also seeks to make it difficult for terrorists to use Afghanistan as a base of operations, and to alter the military balance of power in favor of opposition forces by knocking out Taliban offensive weapons, he said.
"We have made measurable progress on each of these goals," said Mr. Rumsfeld.
"This is a task that will take time to accomplish. Victory will require that every element of American influence and power be engaged," he said. "Americans have seen tougher adversaries than this before - and they have had the staying power to defeat them. Underestimating the American people is a bad bet."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the war is not about "statistics, deadlines, short attention spans, or 24-hour news cycles."
"It is about will - the projection of will, the clear, unambiguous determination of the president and the American people to see this through to certain victory," he said.
The defense secretary noted that in past American wars enemy commanders "have come to doubt the wisdom of taking on the strength and power of this nation and the resolve of her people."
"I expect that somewhere, in a cave in Afghanistan, there is a terrorist leader who is, at this moment, considering precisely the same thing," he said of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader and suspected mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Asked about the use of cluster bombs that disperse numerous bomblets, Mr. Rumsfeld said the bombs "are being used on frontline al Qaeda and Taliban troops to try to kill them to be perfectly blunt."
"Today is November 1, and smoke - at this very moment - is still rising from the ruins of the World Trade Center," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "With the ruins still smoldering and the smoke not yet cleared, it seems to me that Americans understand well that - despite the urgency in the press questions - we are still in the very, very early stages of this war."
Mr. Rumsfeld noted that after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor it took the United States four months before Lt. Col. James Doolittle led a bombing raid on Tokyo.
Also, the first land battle against the Japanese was carried out eight months after Pearl Harbor.
"Many things about this war are different from wars past, but, as I have said, one of those differences is not the possibility of instant victory," he said.
"There is no doubt in my mind but that the American people know that it's going to take more than 24 days," he said. "I also stated that our task is much broader than simply defeating the Taliban or al Qaeda - it is to root out global terrorist networks, not just in Afghanistan, but wherever they are, to ensure that they cannot threaten the American people or our way of life."
Since the bombing began, U.S. and allied aircraft have flown 2,000 sorties and dropped more than 1 million packaged meals to Afghan refugees.
Mr. Rumsfeld said that press reports claiming the U.S. military has not been aggressive enough in carrying out bombing raids are "absolutely false."
Initial targets were chosen to knock out air defenses and aircraft and then to hit various military targets.
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Pentagon Changing Color of Airdropped Meals
Yellow Food Packs, Cluster Bomblets on Ground May Confuse Afghans
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27560-2001Nov1?language=printer
The Pentagon announced yesterday it would change the color of airdropped food packets from yellow to blue after United Nations and human rights groups said they might be confused with the yellow canisters of unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs dropped in Afghanistan.
"It is unfortunate that the cluster bombs -- the unexploded ones -- are the same color as the food packets," said Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said both the packets and the bomblets were yellow so they would be easily visible.
"Unfortunately, they get used to running to yellow," he said, noting the possibility that Afghan civilians might mistake a bomblet for a food packet. He said he did not know how long it would take to change the food packet color. "That, obviously, will take some time," he said. "because there are many in the pipeline."
But Human Rights Watch said the Pentagon should stop dropping the cluster bombs, which it said posed a particular hazard to civilians regardless of the color of the food packets. Because these weapons spread bomblets over such wide areas and because the bomblets frequently fail to explode on impact, Human Rights Watch said, they "cause unacceptable civilian casualties both during and after conflict."
Changing the food packet color "solves one little problem," said Joost Hiltermann, head of the arms division of Human Rights Watch.
U.N. officials said that on Oct. 22, U.S. cluster bombs dropped on the village of Shaker Qala near Herat in western Afghanistan killed nine civilians and injured 14 others.
Each of the CBU-87 cluster bombs being used in Afghanistan contains 202 bomblets the size of soda cans; each bomblet is powerful enough to damage tanks and kill people. One cluster bomb can spread bomblets over an area roughly 100 by 50 meters, according to Human Rights Watch. On average, about 7 percent of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, but these duds can still detonate when touched, picked up or stepped on.
"They have proven to be a serious and long-lasting threat to civilians, soldiers, peacekeepers and even clearance experts," a Human Rights Watch report said.
Myers and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the United States had no intention of suspending the use of cluster bombs, which experts said were particularly useful in attacking masses of troops similar to those the Taliban has in northern Afghanistan.
"We are trying to be very careful in the way we plan this particular conflict," Myers said. "If we match up a specific weapon to a specific target and we make the judgment that it's in accordance with the law of armed conflict and we've worked this very, very carefully, then we'll use that weapon."
He said, "In some cases, that means cluster bombs, and we understand the impact of those. I would take you back to September 11; we also understand the impact of that."
In Bosnia in 1995, the United States decided to prohibit the use of cluster bombs because of the danger to civilians. In 1999, U.S., British and Dutch aircraft dropped more than 1,765 cluster bombs on Yugoslavia during the NATO air campaign. Human Rights Watch estimated that 1.2 million unexploded bomblets were left behind in Iraq and Kuwait after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
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Taliban spy web makes infiltrating difficult
By Julian West
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011102-88342668.htm
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Any allied attempt to infiltrate Afghanistan will run up against an elaborate Taliban spy network ranging from the agents of the former Soviet-era network who tracked eight detained Western aid workers, to young children who are taught to inform on their parents.
Afghan analysts believe it was this nationwide spy network that tripped up Abdul Haq, America's brightest hope for a Pashtun-led revolt against the Taliban, who was discovered in Afghanistan and executed by the regime last Friday.
"The Taliban knew what he was going to do even before he left his house in Peshawar," said a former Pakistani intelligence officer.
"By the time he'd crossed the mountains, they were already sweeping the area. The Taliban intelligence on both sides of the border is good, mainly because the locals support them."
Another longtime Afghan observer said: "One thing the Taliban have invested in is intelligence. You can't do anything in secret there; there are informers everywhere, including children."
Children, some as young as 5, have become spies for the Taliban regime. Many are recruited among war orphans, the ragged tribes of street beggars or students of madrassas, religious schools where destitute families send their children for food, shelter and religious training.
Aid agencies estimate there are several thousand of these child-agents spying for the Taliban in Afghanistan's main cities.
"The Taliban are using these children to inform on their parents, to tell them who they're supporting, and to tell them if there are weapons hidden in houses," said Fataneh Gilani, head of the Afghan Women's Society, a Peshawar-based aid agency.
"But because they are children they often get things wrong. A lot of innocent people have been betrayed by children."
Afghanistan's children - long recognized as effective spies because they can be trained to scour the urban landscape, clamber through rambling family compounds and go unnoticed in the company of adults - wer