------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Moscow backs Washington on moratorium for nuclear tests
Past Nuclear Space Accidents
FedEx Shipped a High Radiation Package Without Knowledge
La. Investigates Radiation Leak
Three British Energy UK nuclear units off line
CIA Reports on China Nuclear Threat
Report sees China greatly increasing missile force
China rejects US missile report
China Denies U.S. Report on Its Nuclear Ambitions
Army buys 'safer' tank ammunition
Silver Bullet: Depleted Uranium
Finnish govt seen backing new nuclear plant
German brown coal second only to nuclear for power
Lithuania nuclear plant reopens first unit after repairs
US likely to face missile threat by 2015
U.S. Encourages Russia on Technology
Russia Takes Stand on Nuclear Arms
Russia Hopes Nuclear Arms Cuts 'Not Just on Paper'
Russia Uneasy About U.S. Arms Cuts Proposals
Loss of ABM Treaty a serious blow to arms control
A World of Wee Devices Seeks Some Batteries to Match
Administration tiptoes around nuke-test issue
U.S. Aims for 3,800 Nuclear Warheads
THE US NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW
Tight security rings U.S. nuclear power plants
Calvert Pressing State on Nuclear Emergency Response Plan
Fair trade: Amargosa Valley bovine waste for nuclear waste
Nevada Outraged: Yucca Mountain OKd for Nuclear Waste
Nevada Picked for Nuclear Waste Site
Energy Dept Endorses Nevada Site for Nuclear Waste
Nevada To Fight Nuclear Waste Site
Nevada Files Constitutional Challenge to Yucca Repository
Energy Dept. Wants to Store Nuclear Waste in Nevada
Yucca Mountain Chronology
ORNL workers exposed to radiation in three incidents
DOE officials testify at hearing for whistleblower
U.S. Nuke Proposal Called Shell Game

MILITARY
Villagers, U.S. At Odds Over Lethal Bombing
Reports That Taliban Leaders Were Freed Shock, Alarm U.S.
Afghan troops ordered out of Kabul to open way for ISAF
Military Chiefs Signal Support for Mugabe
Ethiopia says no reason to deploy troops in Somalia
Arms Buildup Enriches Firm Staffed by Big Guns
Russia signs contract to build two destroyers for Chinese Navy
U.S. lifts ban on arms sales
Arms Buildup Enriches Firm Staffed by Big Guns
N.Y., Calif. Refuse to Exclude Terrorism From Insurance
Loral settles charge it gave China data
People and Ecosystems in Colombia: Casualties of the Drug War
Colombia ends peace talks
Bush Warns Iran Not to Try to Undermine Afghanistan
Bush Warns Iranian Officials
Israel Flattens Gaza Homes in Retaliation for Attack
India's deadly defence: the 1,800 mile long minefield
US to mount raids into Pak to hunt Laden
Biographical details of Musharraf
U.S. KC-130 crashes in Pakistan
US assures Pakistan of defence cooperation
200,000 refugees have entered Pakistan since Sept
Pentagon Doesn't Want Photos Sent
For NPR, Violence Is Calm if It's Violence Against Palestinians
Turkey changes line on Chechen rebels
U.S.'s intent to stay in Asia irks Moscow
Evidence of rights abuses mounts as Russians end Argun sweep
US Air Force ready to launch Milstar satellite
KUCINICH SPACE WEAPONS BAN BILL ENDORSERS (HR 2977)
Space Preservation Act HR 2977 IH
BILL WOULD BAN SPACE-BASED MIND CONTROL WEAPONS
Espionage Verdict Upheld in Russia
U.N. group attracts big-name businesses
U.S. Begins Transfer of Detainees to Cuba

POLICE / PRISONERS
Ridge Predicts Salt Lake Games Safe
Fired Nuclear Worker Had Arms Cache, Police Say
Justice's IG begins probe of anti-terror law's use
Demand for bomb-sniffing dogs breeds U.S. Govt program
And to your left ...
Federal Judge Bars Expert Testimony
High Court Reaffirms 'Truth in Sentencing'
O'Connor swings ruling to raise bar on death penalty
N.C. Gov. Commutes Death Sentence
Terrorists moving from Somalia

ENERGY AND OTHER
Wind power use grows by 30%
Loyola Marymount Will Install Giant Solar Roof
U.S. Backs Fuel-Cell Cars
Bush abandons high-mileage car program for hydrogen fuel-cell approach
Most fuel cell companies give up gains on US plan
White House Moves to Contain Political Damage
Microbe breaks down PCBs
Oil Spill Contaminates Ecuadorian Amazon
Beach Water Pollution Can Be Tracked to Its Source
Anthrax not uncommon outside U.S.
Bush backs restoring of food stamps
US intelligence forecasts seven potential new trouble spots in 2002

ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace Star Wars Protesters Guilty of Misdemeanor
Why we have to save the ABM treaty
Inquiry: what other space weapons bans do you know?



-------- NUCLEAR

Moscow backs Washington on moratorium for nuclear tests

Thursday January 10, 2002 3:57 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020109/1/29zu5.html

Russia welcomed the US decision to continue the international moratorium on nuclear arms testing, reports say.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Iakovenko said the moratorium was "particularly important as Washington continues to obstinately refuse to ratify the agreement on the complete ban of nuclear tests", a reference to the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

A spokesman for the White House confirmed Tuesday that US President George W. Bush "continued to be in favour of the moratorium" on nuclear arms testing.

The statement came after US press reports suggested underground nuclear testing would begin again, despite the current government stance against it.

Former US president George Bush, the father of the current US leader, decided to impose the moratorium in 1992.

The world's five heavyweight nuclear powers -- Russia, the United States, France, China and Britain -- signed the CTBT, however the parliaments of China and the United States have yet to ratify the treaty.

The Russian foreign ministry spokesman said the importance of non-proliferation and disarmament agreements had increased since the "erroneous decision by the United States to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty" of 1972.

Bush said last month that the United States would pull out of the ABM treaty in six months time.

Discussions on the reduction of strategic arms between the United States and Russia are due to take place later this month.

-------- accidents

Past Nuclear Space Accidents

http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/pnacc.htm

NOVEMBER 1996: Russian Mars '96 space vehicle disintegrates over Chile and Bolivia, likely spreading its payload of nearly half a pound of plutonium. Searchers found no remains of the spacecraft which was believed to have burned up. Eyewitnesses saw the flaming reentry over the mountains in the region.

FEBRUARY 1983: Soviet Cosmos 1402 crashes into South Atlantic ocean carrying 68 pounds of Uranium-235.

JANUARY 1978: Cosmos 954 blows up over Canada with 68 pounds of Uranium-235 and other nuclear poisons, much of which is thought to have vaporized and spread worldwide.

APRIL 1973: Soviet Rorsat lands in the Pacific Ocean north of Japan. Radiation released from the reactor was detected.

APRIL 1970: Apollo 13 lands near New Zealand with the 8.3 pounds of Plutonium-238 believed to be still in the spacecraft at the bottom of the ocean floor.

1969: Two Cosmos lunar missions fail. Radiation detected as crafts burn up in the atmosphere.

MAY 1968: U.S. Nimbus B-1 lands in the Santa Barbara channel off California with 4.2 pounds of Uranium-238 but was recovered by NASA.

APRIL 1964: U.S. Transit 5BN-3 hits the Indian Ocean with its 2.1 pounds of Plutonium-238 vaporizing in the atmosphere and spreading worldwide.

----

FedEx Shipped a High Radiation Package Without Knowledge

New York Times
January 10, 2002
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/10/national/10RADI.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - FedEx unwittingly carried a package from Paris to New Orleans last week that was emitting so much radiation that the recipient, a company that packages radiation sources for industrial testing, has been unable to get near enough to measure it directly.

But FedEx officials said the fact that the container passed undetected through the company's system did not indicate a security risk, because the shipper and the recipient were known to FedEx, allowing easy approval of the shipment.

If terrorists had tried to ship radioactive material they would have failed, the company said, because extra precautions would have been taken in the case of an unknown shipper or recipient.

FedEx never monitored the radiation while the shipment was in its custody. The recipient, the Source Production and Equipment Company, notified FedEx of the radiation after a FedEx truck delivered the 300-pound package to the company's factory in St. Rose, La.

The company told FedEx in an initial estimate that the dose at the surface was 10 rem per hour. If that is correct, a person exposed to the radiation would exceed the annual limit for exposure in half an hour, and within a few hours would show effects from radiation poisoning.

At the Texas office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Chuck Cain, the acting director of the materials branch, said that "this event could have had very serious consequences."But Mr. Cain added that it did not appear that anyone had absorbed a large dose.

The package contained Iridium- 172, which is used for industrial radiography. The radioactive material is put behind a heavy piece of metal, and by measuring what comes through the other side, technicians can look for cracks or other flaws.

The shipper was a Swedish manufacturer, Studsvik.

Scott A. Mugnow, director of safety at FedEx, said the pilots on the plane that carried the shipment were equipped with badges that measure radiation, and that when those were processed they did not show significant exposure. But other workers who handled the shipment did not have such badges. FedEx is trying to calculate their exposure. Mr. Mugnow would not describe how a package from an unknown shipper would have been treated differently.

The president of the Source Production did not return phone calls over two days.

--------

La. Investigates Radiation Leak

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 10, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Radioactive-Package.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26248-2002Jan10?language=printer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A steel container that leaked dangerous levels of radiation after arriving from Sweden will be stored behind a lead-and-concrete shield until the cause of the leak can be determined, state officials said Thursday.

The package, which emitted radiation levels at least five times higher than U.S. regulations allow, was shipped to a company that packages radiation sources for industrial use.

Authorities said it was unlikely anyone was harmed by the leak. Preliminary calculations showed those who came in contact with the package would have been exposed to radiation similar to a CAT scan, said Michael Henry, senior environmental scientist at the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

``I don't think anyone was exposed to anything that will be harmful to health. At least there's no indication of that as of yet,'' Henry said.

The leak was discovered Jan. 2 by workers from St. Rose-based Source Production and Equipment Co. who retrieved the container from the New Orleans airport.

The package had been transported from Stockholm to Memphis by FedEx, whose crew members wear devices that constantly monitor radiation levels. The devices showed normal levels during the trip, said Sandra Munoz, a company spokeswoman.

``The radiation was discovered after it left our possession,'' Munoz said.

Henry said the leak probably began sometime after the container arrived in Memphis. FedEx hired a trucking company to drive the package from Memphis to New Orleans. Munoz would not reveal the name of the company, citing a confidentiality policy.

The Swedish company that shipped the package, Studsvik, said radiation levels were tested in Stockholm and Paris and found to be normal. Studsvik is developing a plan to safely open the container and determine the cause of the leak, Henry said.

The package was sending out about 1 roentgen per hour of radiation at a distance of 20 feet away, five times the amount allowed under U.S. regulations, he said.

He said pellets of the radioactive material, Iridium-192, probably moved from a shielded part of the container to an area that allowed radiation to leak. Studsvik has been prohibited from shipping Iridium-192 since the discovery.

Iridium-192 is sold to testing laboratories, which use it in radiography to check welded joints in structures such as oil pipelines and bridges.

-------- britain

Three British Energy UK nuclear units off line

UK: January 10, 2002
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13981/story.htm

LONDON - Three of British Energy's UK nuclear power generating units, with a total capacity of 1,750 megawatts, were out of action on Wednesday, the company said.

"We don't speculate on when plants will come back," a company spokesman told Reuters.

At the Hinkley Point B plant, the 650-megawatt unit seven was shut down early on Tuesday because of a turbine problem.

At the Dungeness B station, both 550-megawatt reactors remained off for refuelling.

The Dungeness reactor 21 went off on Sunday and reactor 22 went down early on Wednesday, according to data from the National Grid.

-------- china

CIA Reports on China Nuclear Threat

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN,
Associated Press Writer
Thursday January 10 8:00 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020110/ts/missile_threat_3.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - China is expected to have as many as 100 long-range nuclear missiles aimed at the United States by 2015, many of them on hard-to-find mobile launchers, a new CIA (news - web sites) report says.

China sees a larger, mobile force as necessary to maintain its nuclear deterrent against the United States, says the report, ``Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015.''

The report, released Wednesday, also says North Korea (news - web sites) and Iran will probably possess long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States by the same year.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said Thursday that China would strengthen its national defense ``in accordance with its own needs.''

``I have no details on the specific report,'' he said, ``but I think such matters are merely baseless speculation.''

Similar assessments have been used to justify U.S. plans for multibillion-dollar missile defense systems capable of shooting down a limited ICBM attack on the continental United States.

Last month President Bush (news - web sites) used the threat of missile attack by terrorists as a reason for the United States to pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia.

``I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks,'' the president said.

But the new report says terrorists aren't expected to employ long-range missiles to deliver nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction on the United States.

``Ships, trucks, airplanes and other means may be used,'' it says. Hostile countries may employ similar means, it says.

These delivery methods can be used covertly, are cheaper and more accurate than non-U.S. ICBMs, and avoid any missile defenses, the report says.

Currently, China has about 20 silos with CSS-4 nuclear ICBMs that are capable of reaching the United States, the report says. Another dozen nuclear missiles can reach targets in Russia and Asia. It also has a few medium-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and probably only one submarine from which to launch them.

The report is an unclassified summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, which draws together information and analyses from the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies about foreign countries' missile development programs.

The Chinese military is developing three new missile systems, two truck-launched missiles and a new submarine-launched missile, all of which could be fielded by 2010, the report says. The Chinese may also be able to mount multiple-independent re-entry vehicles - MIRVs - on its older silo-based missiles. These enable a single missile to launch warheads at several targets, vastly increasing the missile's potential damage.

China sees an expanded ICBM force as necessary to overcome a U.S. missile defense system - and therefore maintain its ability to strike the U.S. mainland. This would provide a deterrent during a conflict over Taiwan.

While U.S. officials insist the missile defense program is to defeat strikes by North Korea and other ``rogue'' nations, some of those proposed defenses might be sufficient to shoot down all 20 Chinese ICBMs. Analysts say that having a missile defense system would give the U.S. more freedom to go to war over Taiwan, should China invade it.

Arguing for such a system, Bush suggested earlier this year that a rogue state might not be restrained by the fear of nuclear annihilation as the Soviet Union was.

One-hundred missiles would be too many for most of the missile defense systems envisioned by the Pentagon (news - web sites), ensuring that China has a deterrent against U.S. entry into a fight over Taiwan.

``Beijing is concerned about the survivability of its strategic deterrent against the United States and has a long-range modernization program to develop mobile, solid-propellant ICBMs,'' the report says. ``The (U.S. intelligence community) projects that by 2015, most of China's strategic missile force will be mobile.''

China also is expanding its short-range ballistic missile force, and will probably have several hundred by 2005, the report says. These are armed with conventional warheads which could be used to bombard Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.

North Korea, meanwhile, has halted missile flight-testing until at least 2003, although it continues to develop the Taepo Dong-2, a two-stage missile that would be capable of reaching parts of the western United States. North Korea also probably has one or two nuclear weapons that could be mounted on those missiles, the report says.

Iran, meanwhile, might be able to test a long-range missile around 2005, but more likely won't have the capability to do so until 2010, the report says.

The report reflects some differences of opinion between U.S. intelligence agencies, with one unidentified agency arguing that Iran won't be able to test missiles able to reach the U.S. mainland even by 2015. Its projections also assume each country's political direction will not change significantly during the next 13 years.

Iran will rely on foreign assistance from Russia, China and North Korea to complete its missile program, the report says.

Russia's strategic missile force will continue to get smaller, with or without arms control agreements, but Russia will still have far and away the largest nuclear missile inventory capable of hitting the United States, the report says.

----

Report sees China greatly increasing missile force

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 10, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020110-77865160.htm

China is building up its strategic missile force by converting silo missiles to road-mobile ICBMs, as North Korea, Iran, Iraq continue work on long-range strike weapons, a U.S. intelligence report released yesterday says.

"The intelligence community projects that Chinese ballistic missile forces will increase several-fold by 2015," the National Intelligence Council, an interagency analysis group based at CIA headquarters, stated in an annual assessment.

The unclassified report said the future Chinese ballistic missile force "deployed primarily against the United States" will number around 75 to 100 warheads and will be smaller than either U.S. or Russian strategic arsenals.

The report also said North Korea appears to be preparing for a flight test of its long-range Taepo Dong-2 missile, "which is capable of reaching parts of the United States with a nuclear weapon-sized ... payload" of several hundred pounds.

There is a danger some nations could fire short- or medium-range ballistic missiles or cruise missiles from ships close to U.S. coasts, the report says.

"Most U.S. intelligence community agencies project that during the next 15 years the United States most likely will face [intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM] threat from North Korea, Iran and possibly Iraq, ... in addition to the strategic forces of Russia and China," the report said.

The report was issued in response to requests from the Senate Intelligence Committee to produce annual threat assessments.

It was made public weeks after President Bush announced the United States' intention to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia as part of efforts to build strategic missile defenses.

A U.S. intelligence official said the report, similar to an earlier national intelligence estimate, was made public as a reminder "that the threat from ballistic missiles remains and continues to grow."

Although North Korea has extended a moratorium on missile flight testing until next year based on progress in talks with the United States, a Taepo Dong-2 space launch test is expected, as occurred during its first test in 1998, the report said.

The report said North Korea is continuing to work on its Taepo Dong missiles.

The intelligence council report is a consensus view of various U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, State Department intelligence and military intelligence units.

The report said that Iran is building both long- and short-range missiles and has Shahab-3 missiles with ranges of up to 806 miles "that could be launched in a conflict."

An intercontinental-range missile could be test launched by Iran by the late 2000s, the report said. Iraq also "wants a long-range missile and probably retains a small, covert force of Scud-variant missiles."

The report states the proliferation of missile goods, mostly from Russia, China and North Korea, has boosted efforts of developing nations to build missiles.

China's sales of M-11 short-range missiles to Pakistan, for example, have helped Islamabad build longer-range missiles, it stated.

Russia's missile force of about 700 ICBMs with 300 warheads and a dozen missile submarines with 200 missiles and 900 warheads, likely will decrease to a total of fewer than 2,000 warheads regardless of arms control, the report said.

China's current small force of about 20 CSS-4 ICBMs capable of hitting the United States and about 12 CSS-3s that can hit targets in Russia and Asia is being modernized, the report said.

----

China rejects US missile report

Thursday, 10 January, 2002
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1752000/1752481.stm

China has been developing its missiles in recent years China has dismissed as "baseless speculation" a CIA report which said it could quadruple its arsenal of nuclear warheads.

The Central Intelligence Agency said that within 13 years, China is likely to have between 75 and 100 inter-continental missiles aimed at the United States.

That is about four times the current number of missiles.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said China would strengthen its national defence "in accordance with its own needs".

"I have no details on the specific report," he said, "but I think such matters are merely baseless speculation."

The CIA also concludes that by 2015, both North Korea and Iraq are likely to have developed missiles that could hit the US.

Chinese expansion

China is keen to develop its missile force so it can maintain a nuclear deterrent against the US, which is planning a controversial multi-million-dollar missile defence system.

The US says its missile defence programme is to protect itself against North Korea and what it calls "rogue" nations, like Iraq. But some of those proposed defences could in theory shoot down about 20 Chinese inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

However, the system could not handle the number of missiles the CIA estimates China will develop.

The CIA says China is already developing three new missile systems which could be ready by 2010.

It is also developing the ability to fire missiles from mobile launchers and to equip them with multiple warheads.

China already has about 20 silos with CSS-4 nuclear ICBMs capable of reaching the US, the report says. It also has a few medium-range, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and, it is thought, one submarine from which to launch them.

China is also expanding its short-range ballistic missile force, and will probably have several hundred by 2005, the report says. These are armed with conventional warheads that could target Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.

The CIA report also says North Korea's Taepo Dong-2 missile, which would have the capability to reach the western US, could be ready for flight-testing.

Pyongyang has declared a moratorium on missile flight-tests until at least 2003.

----

China Denies U.S. Report on Its Nuclear Ambitions

January 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-missiles-usa.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - China dismissed as baseless on Thursday a U.S. intelligence report that said Beijing could increase its arsenal of nuclear warheads capable of reaching the United States from about 20 now to 100 over the next 15 years.

``Such news is just baseless speculation. China will increase its defense power based on its own needs,'' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi.

The U.S. report was a combined analysis by various intelligence agencies released Wednesday.

The United States is trying to develop a missile defense shield to protect against any long-range missile attack by hostile forces. China has opposed the U.S. defense shield plans out of fear its small nuclear arsenal could be neutered and that it could be stretched to cover rival Taiwan.

Thursday, China also called on the United States to abide by and sign a treaty aimed at banning global nuclear tests after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left the door open to future underground nuclear tests.

Rumsfeld reasserted U.S. commitment to a nuclear testing moratorium Tuesday, but left open the possibility that future underground tests might be needed to keep the shrinking U.S. nuclear arsenal ``safe and reliable.''

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi, in response to a question on the issue, said:

``We hope that all countries will strictly abide by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and sign and approve the treaty as soon as possible.''

The U.S. Senate decided in 1999 not to ratify the proposed international Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, which is aimed at a global ban on all nuclear tests.

Rumsfeld said U.S. President George W. Bush would continue for now to observe a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing since 1992.

China has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty but has not ratified it.


-------- depleted uranium

Army buys 'safer' tank ammunition

By Michael Smith,
Defence Correspondent
10/01/2002)
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/10/ndu10.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/10/ixnewstop.html

THE Army is to buy a tungsten-tipped armour-piercing round for its tanks amid concern over the side-effects of the depleted uranium equivalent.

The depleted uranium (DU) round used by Britain's Challenger II tanks has been cited by veterans' organisations as a possible cause for the illnesses suffered by thousands of soldiers who served in the Gulf war.

The Ministry of Defence denied that the decision to buy the round, which a year ago the Army said it did not need, was a tacit admission that DU might be harmful.

A spokesman said: "It is not going to replace the DU rounds. We're not going wholesale into tungsten at the expense of DU. It's an option. It's an alternative to DU."

The National Gulf War Veterans' and Families' Association said the MoD had no choice but to seek alternatives to the DU round because so many countries now regarded the potential side-effects as too dangerous.

"It doesn't surprise us because DU is dangerous," said Shaun Rusling, the association's chairman. "It is sensible to do this but it is a bit late for the Gulf war veterans."

The Army warned five years ago that exposure to dust from exploded DU ammunition increased the risk of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers.

The MoD has persistently said that the main risk from DU ammunition comes from chemical poisoning caused by the ingestion of larger quantities of uranium dioxide dust than anyone would be likely to swallow.

The Army report, however, stated that even small amounts of insoluble uranium dioxide dust would build up in the lungs where it would emit radiation, causing cancer.

British forces used DU ammunition during the Gulf war for armour-piercing tank rounds and for Phalanx anti-missile rounds fired by Navy ships. The Navy was forced to stop using the DU rounds after the American manufacturer of the Phalanx rounds stopped producing them because of safety fears.

Gen Sir Michael Walker, Chief of General Staff, told the International Defence Review that the Army was going to buy a tungsten-penetrator round developed privately by BAE Systems Royal Ordnance and Vickers.

----

Silver Bullet: Depleted Uranium

January 10, 2002,
Canadian Broadcast Corporation
http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/du/

Depleted uranium is the super weapon of the '90s; used in the Gulf War and the conflict in Kosovo. But now Canadian troops, soldiers and peacekeepers alike, may be exposed to depleted uranium with its potential danger. Now this threat wasn't one raised by a hostile enemy, but by the arms used by the United States and other NATO allies. They defeated the toughest armoured vehicles with the use of depleted uranium. It packed a knockout punch, but what soldiers often didn't know was that depleted uranium poses a threat to victor as well as vanquished. Dan Bjarnason reports this cautionary tale. The story producer was Marijka Hurko.

Jerry Wheat went off to war in the Gulf, He drove a Bradley armoured personnel carrier for the Third armoured Division. Then the war followed Jerry home to New Mexico.

"I have had real bad joint pain, abdominal problems," Wheat says. "I get real bad headaches. I went from 220 pounds down to 160 pounds for no reason, and that's when I started suspecting that it was something related to the Gulf."

The shadows of that war eight years ago still haunt him. Wheat brought back more than victory from the front. Awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded in combat, Wheat came home with pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body and with mysterious body pains. Jerry Wheat is convinced these ominous souvenirs from the firing line are connected.

The ground campaign in the Gulf War involved much fighting by armoured forces. Wheat's unit was in the thick of it, and his vehicle was accidentally hit twice by fire from his own side. What Wheat did not know was that the shells that hit him were made from depleted uranium, the pride of the American arsenal.

"It blew off my helmet and blew me into the front of the vehicle," Wheat recalls. "I could feel it. I could feel the burning because when the rounds went through, the aluminum melted. And as it goes in you, just burns; it cauterizes as it goes in. At that point, I felt the shrapnel hit me in the back -- hit me in the back of the head. I had second and third degree burns on the back of my head."

It's the new wonder weapon the Pentagon calls a "silver bullet."

What is depleted uranium? Depleted uranium is still uranium. There are three types of uranium, U238, U234 and U235. Uranium 234 and 235 are fissionable material, the kind used in bombs. Depleted uranium is what is left over when the U234 and U235 is removed. The remaining U238 is still highly radioactive.

Depleted uranium shell A DU round is made from the leftover U238. The killing punch comes from the solid depleted uranium metal rod in the shell. A 120 mm tank round contains about 4000 grams or 10 pounds of solid DU.

DU shell hits A DU rod is very dense. At high speed, it slices through tanks like a hot knife through butter. It burns on impact, creating flying bits and dust that are toxic and radioactive with a half-life of 4.2 billion years.

In the Gulf War, the U.S. fired almost a million DU rounds, leaving a battlefield littered with 1,400 wrecked radioactive Iraqi tanks, crawled over by victorious GI's who were breathing in contaminated dust.

Jerry Wheat and the other Gulf vets were never told of the risks of being exposed to a DU campaign. But after the shooting stopped and back home in Los Lunas, New Mexico, Wheat -- now out of the army -- grew mystified as his health deteriorated. Military doctors had no answers.

Then a year after war's end, Wheat got startling evidence from his father -- a technician at the famous Los Alamos Nuclear Research Centre, who just out of curiosity tested the shrapnel that came from his son's body and gear. The shrapnel was radioactive. Today, eight years after the Gulf War, that shrapnel still lights up a Geiger counter. He also keeps other pieces.

"This is shrapnel out of my gear. And there was just a couple pieces that I took out of my body -- a couple small pieces... I kept it since I found out the vehicle was hit with a DU penetrator, I just kept it so I would have it. Just kind of proof," Wheat says.

The pieces on the table are not a danger, he says. "But if you actually got a piece that was depleted uranium and you had inhaled it or swallowed it or something, then you would have a potential heavy metal problem," Wheat says.

Jerry's great fear is that whatever he brought back with him from the Gulf is now afflicting his family. His older son Joe was hospitalized with breathing problems the day after Wheat dragged his contaminated gear into the house. Derrick, his youngest son, who was born after the war, suffers strange blisters on his hands. His wife suffered a miscarriage. Jerry himself recently had a tumour removed from his shoulder. He now worries continually about cancer.

Jerry says the military has never shown any interest in his shrapnel. The military said Jerry's health problems are due to post traumatic stress.

At the Pentagon, depleted uranium is no mystery weapon. The American military has been testing it for 40 years, yet no one in the corridors of power gave much attention to ensuring that American GI's knew how to handle the new weapons system. Bernard Rostker is the under secretary of the army, and he admits that over the years, troops were given no proper training. Rostker himself reported in 1998 that American soldiers in their thousands had been unnecessarily exposed to DU; this seven years after the end of the Gulf War, when it was first used.

"We were not diligent in training our troops," Rostker says. "That doesn't mean that there were any health consequences. These are men who survived friendly fire incidences and have been traumatized; some had been burned, some have lost limbs. So they are not without health problems. But those health problems are not attributable to the heavy metal toxicity or the radioactivity of depleted uranium."

"So what do you tell the vets who are ailing from something and they feel it's because of depleted uranium weapons?" reporter Dan Bjarnson asks.

"We, first of all, don't believe that this is people's imagination. We think people are ill. We have an extensive program trying to understand what they may have been exposed to on the battlefield. We have published over 23 reports. Unfortunately, we have not found a smoking gun."

The number of Gulf War vets who were in contact with radioactive tanks or breathed in contaminated dust could be in the tens of thousands. Yet so far, only a fraction -- about 200 vets, like Jerry Wheat -- are being monitored. The Pentagon still insists there is not enough evidence to link exposure with illness.

Doug Rokke is a thorn in the side of the military today because of what he learned eight years ago in the Gulf, where he served as lieutenant with the U.S. Army Preventitive Medicine Command. There he led army teams that cleaned up contaminated vehicles hit by DU rounds. Now he is collecting evidence that the Pentagon knew of the health hazards to himself and other vets all along. He now teaches at Jackson State University in Alabama.

"It's obvious today that the military did know, but they didn't inform anybody," Rokke says. "There were two memorandums that came to us in March of 1991 as we started the cleanup of the contaminated equipment and the casualties in the Gulf. One memo was known as the Los Alamos memorandum."

The Los Alamos memo, written by a Lt.Col. M. V. Ziehmn read, in part, "there has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal. ...Keep this sensitive issue in mind when after action reports are written."

"The Los Alamos memorandum specifically gave us guidance that said when we are writing a report, or reporting our findings, make sure -- make sure that we don't disrupt the future use of depleted uranium munitions," Rokke says.

Then a second memo, from the Defence Nuclear Agency, arrived about the same time. It read "Alpha particles (uranium oxide dust) from expended rounds is a health concern but, Beta particles from fragments and intact rounds is a serious health threat..."

"The two memos, added together now after eight years of thought and research and discussions now, in my mind, are very clear. The United States and the world know about the health and the environmental consequences of using this munition and they don't care," Rokke says.

We asked Roskter, if there is no DU problem, why these warnings about DU hazards issued as far back as 1991?

"There has been concern all along with every weapon," Roster says, "We have done testing on depleted uranium, from the beginning, to determine whether it is of particular concern."

After the Gulf War, Doug Rokke was assigned to produce a Pentagon training video to teach soldiers how to handle depleted uranium. It was a video that was ultimately shelved and never shown to the troops.

"There are four general situations during which depleted uranium may present hazards to soldiers. One: if the equipment is damaged or destroyed in combat or in an accident," the video says.

"This is part of the training video that we finished in 1995," Rokke says. "The important part here, what we learned from our research, is everybody involved in working with depleted uranium contaminated equipment must wear respiratory protection and they must have some kind of coveralls or covering that can protect their clothes. What we learned, is you can't get this off the clothing."

"In the Gulf, we basically just had dust masks. We were told that the dust masks and the surgical masks would work and we could wear gloves. And all we had was the uniforms that we had available." "And they knew no better; no one had ever hinted to them they were in peril?" Bjarnason asked.

"And that's criminal," Rokke replies.

The CBC showed that training video to Bernard Rostker at the Pentagon.

"Very interesting film, because you notice something that has been very confusing to some of the troops. Some of them were in full mop gear -- chemical protective gear and a gas mask. But they show other soldiers who were in a bandanna. In fact what you really need is a dust respirator and that's to meet the standards of the EPA. That does not mean anybody who didn't meet the standards during the Gulf War have levels of depleted uranium were likely to be impacted permanently."

The Pentagon built a high security, high priced, high tech cocoon at the Savannah River nuclear facility in Georgia to process radioactive materials from contaminated equipment. It has special walls and flooring to prevent any air or dust from escaping into the outside world. It's known as Building 101.

"If they're going to spend millions and millions of dollars to clean up the contaminated equipment that's come back from the Gulf, which you have seen here, then how could they say there is no hazard?" Rokke asks.

"Look at the amount of effort we do to take asbestos out of a building or lead paint. That doesn't mean that if you walk past a window that has had lead paint that you're going to immediately get lead paint poisoning," Rostker counters.

Doug Rokke's experiences in the Gulf ended eight years ago, but he still fights his battles with the Pentagon from his home in Jacksonville, Alabama. He is convinced his health started to slip away because of his work among contaminated vehicles over there in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait.

"The problems that I have are breathing problems. My lungs have scar tissue in them. When I run or exercise, there are secretions -- fluids just fill up in the lungs. I don't have the fine motor control to do all the fine things that I used to be able to do because the nerves don't work like they should. Eye problems, vision problems, kidney problems," Rokke says.

Rokke has one important ally in his fight with the Pentagon. He is Dr. Jack Zerimba, head of the Gulf War Clinic at a U.S. Veteran's affairs clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

He studied Rokke's breathing problems and the scar tissue on his lungs and says, "That is consistent with uranium exposure and other things too, such as metal exposure."

This official affirmation of a link is for Doug Rokke, his biggest victory in eight years.

In Washington, the Gulf War vets have enlisted the attention of many politicians. Wisconsin Democrat Senator Russ Finegold pressed for and got an investigation by the high powered and independent General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

"The evidence is contradictory with regard to the connection between depleted uranium and the many soldiers from the Gulf War who are complaining of ill effects," Finegold says. "Some reports indicate a real problem here; others question it. I think we need an independent investigation to determine whether this is really true. We have been through this before with many years of denial with regard to Agent Orange and its use in Vietnam. I don't want to see our government in any way, in fact or in perception, stonewall this issue of the health effects of depleted uranium.

In the latest chapter of this revolutionary new weapons system, DU ammunition was fired in this spring's NATO war in Yugoslavia. As usage becomes more frequent, for Finegold, the need for answers becomes more urgent.

"Keep in mind that depleted uranium was used recently in Kosovo and may well have effected people there as well," Finegold says, "This is not just old news. It is real current news for those who are ill from the Gulf War. And we may be finding other people, from the Kosovo conflict, who will experience similar problems in the future because of depleted uranium."

Canada once had depleted uranium in its inventory shells for the Navy during the Gulf War, but they were never fired and are now being disposed of because of the expense of special handling and storage facilities.

But Canadian troops must still deal with DU in Kosovo. Some 1,400 soldiers are now on patrol as part of a NATO peacekeeping contingent. They're equipped with small radiation detection devices and they're also under orders to stay away from any damaged Serb vehicles they come across; vehicles that may have been contaminated by DU ammunition fired by American planes last Spring during the air offensive.

At Defence headquarters in Ottawa, Brig.-Gen. David Jerkowski is in charge of all the operations of all Canadian troops overseas; their supplies and movement and safety.

"Our soldiers are not at risk," Jerkowski says. "There are other risks that are much greater than depleted uranium: there are many many more threats out there: landmines, diseases, reptiles. It depends on where we work in the world, and there are many greater risks than that."

A Canadian Forces routine order refers to "the inhalation of radioactive material as a primary health hazard."

"It depends on who wrote that particular order," Jerkowski says. "They are making sure that our troops are going to heed this and stay away from tank hulks, for example."

But U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Doug Rokke, who once ran the DU Project for the Pentagon, insists that an order simply to stay away from damaged vehicles is far from enough.

"Just staying away from it is only part of an answer, because unless the contamination is completely removed from all areas, how are you going to avoid it? How do you avoid it on a battlefield that's littered with uranium?"

Thousands of returning refugees are now fanning out across Kosovo, through a countryside strewn with rubble and war wreckage. No one has the particular task of keeping them clear of high-risk areas. U.N. environmental teams are running tests to check for signs of contamination; they need maps indicating where NATO DU hits were made. The Pentagon has not obliged.

"I don't think it's necessary and I don't know whether they could, even with any rigour, be created," Rostker says. " I mean the targets were combat vehicles and I'm not sure the pilots would have known where they were. The best thing you could find is the destroyed vehicle and I don't know of any that have been reported."

The stockpiling of DU weapons is spreading. As depleted uranium is becoming more, not less popular with the world's generals, more than 20 countries now have DU In their arsenals. If the lessons from past eras are anything to go by, there is often great ignorance about the path being charted when new weapons come along. For example when atomic testing was all the rage in the '50s, or when Agent Orange was used in Vietnam. When revolutionary new technology is introduced on the battlefield, no one at the time has any real idea of the consequences.

"The next time we go to war, the enemy may fire uranium at us," Rokke says. "So whether or not we decide to have it or not, or decide to use it or not, somebody else may decide to use it. We need to make sure that everybody knows what medical care to provide and how to complete the environmental cleanup. Everybody needs to know."

The military predict that depleted uranium will shape the battlefields of the future, but the future is already here.

-------- finland

Finnish govt seen backing new nuclear plant

FINLAND: January 10, 2002
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13980/story.htm

HELSINKI - Finland's coalition government is sharply divided over a plan to build a new nuclear power plant, but is likely to tilt in favour of it by as early as next week, officials said on Wednesday.

Parliament could vote on the controversial issue by summer. Finland is the only country in western Europe considering to increase nuclear energy capacity at a time when public support has shifted to other energy sources.

"The cabinet will handle this issue next week at the earliest," said Timo Koivisto, adviser to Trade and Industry Minister Sinikka Monkare, who is expected to bring a plant proposal by power group Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) to the cabinet.

"If no one takes issue (with the application), it could be voted on already next week as most ministers have already taken a stance," Koivisto told Reuters.

Finland now has four nuclear reactors at two installations on the south and west coasts. Nuclear power accounts for about 30 percent of the country's total electricity consumption.

But the country is grappling with how to satisfy increasing energy demand while ensuring it meets its greenhouse gas emissions obligations under the Kyoto protocol.

Backers say boosting nuclear capacity is the only way to meet those goals and keep Finland, which has no oil or gas of its own, from becoming dependent on imported electricity. Opponents say the health and environmental risks are too great, and other energy forms should be favoured.

TVO made its proposal in November 2000, but a public complaint kept authorities from moving ahead with it last year.

An informal Reuters survey found that nine of Finland's 18 cabinet members would support the proposal, while five would oppose it, and four ministers were still undecided.

Majority cabinet support is needed for the application to go to parliament. But in case of a tie, Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen - who is said to favour the plan - will decide.

The Greens, the Left Alliance and the Swedish Party, all junior partners of the five-party coalition, have said they oppose the plant bid, but parties have generally given their representatives free rein to vote according to their conscience.

A similar proposal by TVO and Imatran Voima, now part of energy group Fortum , was rejected by parliament in September 1993 after nine months of heated debate.

-------- germany

German brown coal second only to nuclear for power

GERMANY: January 10, 2002
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13979/story.htm

FRANKFURT - Brown coal-fired power plants in Germany last year became the second largest contributor to power generation after nuclear energy, which accounts for a third of the total, the industry association DEBRIV said on Wednesday.

Brown coal, or lignite, plants raised their share to 27.3 percent, a preliminary assessment, and another slight rise is forecast for 2002, DEBRIV said.

Germany is the world's leading lignite producer.

"The share of brown coal within power generation in 2001 increased by around one percentage point," a DEBRIV spokesman told Reuters from his base in Cologne.

"A new plant addition in 2002 will temporarily boost overall production before corresponding old plant capacity is idled," he added.

He cited latest figures from DEBRIV, which showed that some 156 billion kilowatt of power were derived from lignite in 2001, pushing its share in power generation one percent up from the 26.3 percent recorded a year earlier.

According to already published long-term plans, coal producer RWE Rheinbraun in second half 2002 is due to start a new 936 megawatt (MW) plant at Niederaussem near Cologne in order to replace old capacity.

The DEBRIV source said this would cause a temporary overlap with existing capacity.

Latest DEBRIV data also showed that 175.7 million tonnes of lignite were mined in Germany last year, nearly five percent more than in 2000.

The expansion and modernisation of eastern German coal companies, which can tap vast local lignite resources, was the main reason behind the expansion, according to the spokesman.

Politicians are committed to support the sector in order to safeguard jobs and national energy supply as nuclear power will be phased out by the early 2020s.

But these goals clash with national climate protection targets, because of the heavy carbon dioxide emissions arising from lignite.

The spokesman said the industry was working hard at lowering specific CO2 emissions through plant modernisations.

Of the 834 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from German industry recorded last year, 174 million tonnes were caused by lignite production.

-------- lithuania

Lithuania nuclear plant reopens first unit after repairs

LITHUANIA: January 10, 2002
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13982/story.htm

VILNIUS - Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear power plant's first unit was back on line on Wednesday after it had been closed for nine days for minor repairs, plant officials said.

"At (1258 GMT) on January 8, after short repairs, the first unit of the Ignalina nuclear power plant resumed operation... On January 9 the first unit's number one turbine was operating at a power capacity of 660 megawatts," the plant said in a statement.

The plant added that the second of the two units - each with two turbines - was operating at 1,210 megawatts (MW) capacity. Each unit has an installed capacity of 1,300 MW.

Plant officials shut down the first unit on December 29 for what it called a "prophylactic" check-up, taking advantage of a lower demand for power during the holiday season.

"During the outage period of Ignalina's unit one, the rooms usually not attended during operation were examined. The seals of the first circuit have been replaced and the defects of the drainage pipes of small diameter have been eliminated," the plant statement said.

Ignalina officials added there were no variations from normal radiation levels around the plant.

"It was a very minor repair. There were no major problems, therefore we needed only a few days to do it," Ina Didziulyte, a plant spokeswoman, told Reuters.

The power utility Lietuvos Energija said in a statement exports to neighbouring Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad enclave, scaled-down because of the shutdown, would now be resumed at higher levels.

Energija said it planned to supply around 350 million kilowatt hours (KWh) to Belarus and 200 million KWh to Russia's Kaliningrad enclave by the end of the month.

European Union-aspirant Lithuania has vowed to close Ignalina's first unit by 2005. The EU regards the Chernobyl-styled plant as unsafe and has made closing it a condition for joining the 15-member bloc.

-------- missile defense

US likely to face missile threat from North Korea, Iran, Iraq by 2015

Thursday January 10, 12:37 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020110/1/2a1ww.html

The United States most likely will face threats from intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea, Iran, and possibly Iraq before 2015, according to a US intelligence estimate.

The National Intelligence Estimate -- which represents the collective view of the US intelligence community -- also said China's ballistic missile forces will increase several fold by 2015, but will remain considerably smaller and less capable that the strategic missile forces of Russia and the United States.

The estimate, made public Wednesday, said Russia's arsenal will decline to less than 2,000 warheads by 2015 with or without arms control.

The assessment showed no major changes since the last time the US intelligence community reviewed foreign ballistic missile trends in 1999.

But it found that "emerging ballistic missile states continue to increase the range, reliability and accuracy of the missile systems in their inventories -- posing ever greater risks to US forces, interests, and allies throughout the world."

Proliferation of technology, materials and expertise -- especially by Russian, Chinese and North Korean entities -- "has enabled emerging missile states to accelerate missile development, acquire new capabilities, and potentially develop even more capable and longer range future systems."

North Korea's Taepo Dong-2, which is capable of reaching parts of the United States with a nuclear weapons-sized payload, may be ready for flight-testing, an unclassified summary of the report said, noting that Pyongyang has extended a voluntary moratorium on flight testing until 2003.

It said Iran, which has a medium-range ballistic missile, also is pursuing a ICBM/space launch vehicle (SLV) system.

"All agencies agree that Iran could attempt a launch in mid-decade, but Teheran is likely to take until the last half of the decade to flight test an ICBM/SLV," it said. "One agency further believes that Iran is unlikely to conduct a successful test until after 2015."

Iraq would likely spend several years re-establishing its short-range ballistic missile force and prusuing medium range ballistic missiles if UN sanctions were lifted, the asessment said.

"All agencies agree that Iraq could test different ICBM concepts before 2015 if UN prohibitions were eliminated in the next few years," it said. "Most agencies, however, believe it is unlikely to do so, even if the prohibitions were eliminated."

----

U.S. Encourages Russia on Technology

By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Thursday, January 10, 2002; 4:45 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27129-2002Jan10?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is encouraging Russia to develop its own anti-missile technology for protection against regional threats.

The United States could benefit from a Russian shield when American and Russian troops are engaged in peacekeeping operations side by side, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

The United States would be willing to cooperate with Russia in an anti-missile venture, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Russian military arms specialists will hold talks in Washington next Monday and Tuesday with a U.S. delegation headed by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

They are due to take up ways to keep track of Russian nuclear weapons and to verify the deep cutbacks in long-range nuclear warheads pledged by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at talks in Washington and in Texas in November.

The two leaders vowed to reduce their nations' arsenals, but did not agree on new, lower levels.

Bush pledged to cut back to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the current U.S. level of about 7,000. Putin said Russia, which has about 6,000 warheads, would respond in kind.

However, the Russian leader suggested that mutual reductions be incorporated into a treaty. Bush, who has voiced skepticism about such binding agreements, did not go along with that suggestion.

Also, there was no agreement on missile defenses. Bush subsequently said the United States would withdraw from a 1972 treaty with Moscow that stands in the way of his ambitious program for a missile shield.

The two leaders are due to meet again, in St. Petersburg, Russia, in late May or early June. The talks in Washington next week are the first since Bush's decision to scrap the landmark accord and a first step toward potential compromise at the next summit.

The senior U.S. official, who briefed American reporters at the State Department on condition of anonymity, said Putin had cast his lot with the West and that Russia was not an enemy.

In a gesture to Moscow, he said the Bush administration would be willing to codify cutbacks with a statement or even a treaty, provided there would be no Cold War-era, tortuous negotiations.

Also, the official said the United States might try to reach an agreement with Russia on a precise number of warheads that each said would retain, instead of a permissible range.

Some provisions of the 1991 START I treaty, which made deep cuts in U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear weapons, could be applied to new reductions, the official said. These include verification procedures for ensuring the cutbacks are carried out.

But Alistair Miller, vice president of the Fourth Freedom Foundation, a private research group, criticized Bush's proposal to reduce the U.S. stockpile unilaterally.

"This would permit the United States to rearm when it wants to, and is unlikely to build confidence with Russia or any other nuclear state," Miller said in an interview.

"Arms control history clearly shows that arms control agreements build upon one another to foster trust between the two sides," Miller said. "The unilateral announcement by Bush could be ignored or reversed at U.S. discretion."

-------- russia

Russia Takes Stand on Nuclear Arms

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV,
Associated Press Writer
Thursday January 10 8:30 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020110/ts/russia_us_nuclear_2.html

MOSCOW (AP) - Setting the stage for tough talks on nuclear disarmament, Russia bristled Thursday at the Pentagon (news - web sites) plan to downsize U.S. nuclear arsenals by putting weapons in reserve rather than destroying them.

Russia's Foreign Ministry insisted the cuts must be ``irreversible'' when the United States goes through with a promise by President Bush (news - web sites) to reduce the number of operational nuclear warheads by two-thirds, to 1,700-2,200, by 2012.

The issue of what to do with nuclear weapons removed from duty - the so-called buildup potential - has been a major point of contention in previous U.S.-Russian negotiations. The latest statements from both sides signal tough bargaining ahead.

U.S. and Russian diplomats are expected to meet in Washington next week to discuss the details and timetable for the cuts in preparation for Bush's trip to Russia later this spring or summer.

``Russia will push strongly for the nuclear cuts to be irreversible, but the United States is unlikely to make any major concessions,'' said Alexander Pikayev, a military analyst with the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office. ``Unfortunately for Russia, its position in talks is rather weak because its aging nuclear weapons are to go off-duty anyway.''

Bush promised Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) in November that his administration would make the cuts in the numbers of operational warheads - putting the arsenal far below the 6,000 nuclear warheads each country is currently allowed under the START I agreement.

Putin has promised to cut the number of Russian warheads to as low as 1,500. He has also pushed for the cuts to be written into formal treaty, something Bush opposes.

On Wednesday, a top Pentagon planner said that in the reduction plan, some warheads would be destroyed - how many was not announced - while others would be rendered inactive, meaning it would take several months to get them ready to fire.

J.D. Crouch, assistant secretary of defense for international security, said the United States needs to keep the warheads in reserve in case the world situation changes. Most previous arms control treaties do not require warheads to be destroyed, he said.

Russia's Foreign Ministry responded sharply Thursday. Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said cuts must be ``irreversible, so that strategic offensive weapons aren't just reduced 'on paper.'''

Retired Maj.-Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, a former top Russian arms control negotiator, said he expected a compromise, given the recent warmth in Russian-U.S. ties.

``I wouldn't dramatize the situation. A solution can be found by the time of Bush's visit,'' said Dvorkin, now an adviser to the PIR-Center, an independent Russian military policy think-tank.

But Pikayev and some other analysts predicted that the United States would firmly defend its plan to keep nuclear weapons in reserve and refuse to make any major concessions.

``The resulting agreement will not be about real nuclear disarmament. It will only deceive the public,'' Pikayev said.

Ivan Safranchuk, who heads the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said the Pentagon wants to keep its nuclear weapons as a hedge against any new chill in U.S.-Russian relations and also as a deterrent against a potential increase in China's nuclear capability.

``Besides, it's much cheaper to keep weapons in reserve than to destroy them,'' he said.

It was the second time in two days that a U.S. statement on nuclear issues drew criticism from Moscow. On Wednesday, Russia firmly reiterated its commitment to a nuclear testing ban amid indications that the United States wants to reduce the time it would take to resume tests.

Safranchuk said Russia would continue protesting even if it lacks the power to prevent the United States from going its own way.

``Russia wants to show the harm of unilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament,'' he said.

----

Russia Hopes Nuclear Arms Cuts 'Not Just on Paper'

Thursday January 10 6:05 AM ET
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020110/wl/arms_usa_russia_dc_1.html

MOSCOW - Russia sounded a warning on U.S. plans to store rather than destroy warheads to be cut from strategic nuclear arsenals, saying Moscow hoped the reductions ``would be not just on paper.''

A Foreign Ministry statement issued in the early hours of the morning following the presentation in Washington of a new nuclear strategy urged the United States to follow through on pledges to proceed with real cuts in parallel with Russia.

``We believe Russian-American agreements on further cuts in nuclear arsenals must firstly be radical -- down to 1,500-2,200 warheads, secondly verifiable, and thirdly irreversible,'' ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in the statement.

``That means strategic nuclear weapons must be cut not only 'on paper.'''

A senior source in the Russian general staff, quoted by the daily Kommersant in anticipation of the announcement, said Moscow would object to such a move.

``Such a contribution by Washington cannot be acceptable -- offering 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs and 200-300 warheads whose working life has already expired,'' the source said. ``It is ridiculous.''

Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch, outlining the results of a Nuclear Policy Review sent to Congress Tuesday, has said many inactivated nuclear warheads would be put into storage for emergency redeployment rather than being destroyed.

Crouch said Washington was not trying to ``mislead anybody.'' He said it was ``a prudent thing to have, in a very uncertain, period, some responsive capability.''

Both Russia and the United States have pledged to reduce the size of their strategic nuclear arsenals, now standing at between 6,000 and 7,000 warheads each, to a figure somewhere between 1,500 and 2,200.

The issue of whether to destroy -- or merely store -- warheads removed from missiles was a focal point of discussions at a summit in November between presidents Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) and George W. Bush.

Putin said the issue was one to be examined in negotiations leading to a new treaty. U.S. officials took no firm position and left the matter open, with Bush suggesting that a new agreement need not necessarily be part of a formal treaty.

Crouch's comments were part of a broader presentation setting out Washington's vision of nuclear weapons by 2012 to abandon the Cold War-era emphasis on mutual deterrence.

U.S. defense policy is predicated on developing an anti-missile shield to guard against what Bush says are new threats in the 21st century -- primarily missile launches by ''rogue states'' like Iran, Iraq and North Korea (news - web sites).

Bush said last month the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Washington sees as outdated and a hindrance in developing the missile shield.

----

Russia Uneasy About U.S. Arms Cuts Proposals

January 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-usa-russia.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia expressed unease on Thursday at U.S. plans to store, rather than destroy, warheads to be removed from nuclear missiles, with specialists saying Moscow had to insist on a formal post-Cold War disarmament pact.

Warning notes were sounded by Russia's Foreign Ministry, and by disarmament experts, after Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch said many inactivated strategic warheads would be put into storage for emergency redeployment.

A Foreign Ministry statement, issued in the early hours following Crouch's presentation in Washington of a new nuclear strategy, urged the United States to follow through on pledges to proceed with real cuts in parallel with Russia.

``We believe Russian-American agreements on further cuts in nuclear arsenals must firstly be radical -- down to 1,500-2,200 warheads -- secondly verifiable, and thirdly irreversible,'' ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in the statement. ``That means strategic nuclear weapons must be cut not only 'on paper'.''

An expert at Russia's prestigious World Economy and International Relations Institute was blunter, saying such a U.S. approach made the disarmament process ``pointless.''

``What sort of reductions can we speak of if in a matter of hours, the United States can return to START-1 levels?'' Alexei Pikayev told Interfax news agency, referring to the 1991 arms treaty that led to current levels of 6,000-7000 warheads each.

Russia, he said, had consistently destroyed warheads and its aging arsenal gave it little option but to continue doing so.

The issue of whether to destroy -- or merely store -- deactivated warheads was a key unresolved point at a November summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PUTIN, BUSH

Putin said the issue was one to be examined in negotiations leading to a new treaty. U.S. officials took no firm position and left the matter open, with Bush suggesting a new agreement need not necessarily be part of a formal treaty.

A fresh round of talks on clinching a new agreement is to open next week in Washington.

Crouch said Washington was not trying to ``mislead anybody.'' He said it was ``a prudent thing to have, in a very uncertain, period, some responsive capability.''

Both Russia and the United States have pledged to reduce the size of their strategic nuclear arsenals to a figure somewhere between 1,500 and 2,200.

Crouch's comments were part of a broader presentation setting out Washington's vision of nuclear weapons by 2012 to abandon the Cold War-era emphasis on mutual deterrence.

U.S. defense policy is predicated on developing an anti-missile shield to guard against what Bush says are new threats in the 21st century -- primarily missile launches by ''rogue states'' like Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Bush said last month the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Washington sees as outdated and a hindrance in developing the missile shield.

Senior parliamentarian Vladimir Lukin, a former ambassador to Washington, said the statement undermined U.S. notions that it now trusted Russia as a full-fledged ally -- particularly after Moscow's support for the anti-terror coalition.

``After such forthright U.S. declarations about disarmament and trust, it is clear that actions do not bear this out. It is also clear that a handshake is not enough to proceed with arms reductions,'' he said by telephone.

``If this means transferring warheads to a warehouse, it is better than leaving them on missiles, but worse than destroying them. And it sets a bad example for smaller nuclear powers being asked to cut their arsenals. What stimulus is there for them?''

-------- treaties

Loss of ABM Treaty a serious blow to arms control

Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002
Mark A. Gubrud
mgubrud@squid.umd.edu (Mark Gubrud)

The loss of the ABM Treaty is the most serious a blow to arms control and international security in a generation. Its effects may not be as immediately severe as, say, 9/11, but are probably more lasting and fateful:

- The ABM Treaty has been the most important legal impediment to space weapons testing and deployment, in the absence of a specific space weapons ban.

- Building a global NMD system WILL stimulate a Chinese buildup, which likely will stimulate the South Asian arms race, etc. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is only part of this process, but as a declaration of intent to plunge fully into this brave new world, it guarantees that the process goes at full speed from this point forward.

- ABM Treaty withdrawal is a clear signal that the era of strategic nuclear arms competition is not over, but is entering a new phase powered by all recent advances in technology and its proliferation worldwide. It is a step that, although not unanticipated, has shocked those who thought it would not come to pass, and sounded alarm bells around the globe. Its consequences thus touch not only China and South Asia but also Russia and the entire world.

- An easy withdrawal from the ABM Treaty will embolden Bush to further attacks on arms control, including a refusal to reexamine opposition to a BWTC verification regime, refusal to negotiate a formal START III or even to abide by the terms of START II, a restart of nuclear testing, and more.

- ABM Treaty withdrawal is a step that will be very hard to reverse, and may effectively commit the United States to this course of action even if the present administration is replaced by a more moderate one in 2004.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much basis for any hope of a revolt either from the Congress, the media, or the public, on the scale that would be necessary in order to prevent Bush from carrying through this catastrophic action. It is not clear whether activists are better advised to put their efforts into protesting and attempting to prevent ABM Treaty withdrawal, or to look beyond what may be inevitable and work for a formal space weapons ban combined with continuing nuclear reductions and limits on the scope of any missile defense systems.

-------- nuc power

WHAT'S NEXT
A World of Wee Devices Seeks Some Batteries to Match

New York Times
January 10, 2002
By ANNE EISENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/10/technology/10NEXT.html

ENGINEERS have yet to create a tiny submarine like the one in the 1966 movie "Fantastic Voyage," which traveled through a patient's bloodstream to battle a deadly blood clot.

But researchers are steadily shrinking once-massive machines, fabricating blades, hinges and other parts out of silicon at an ever tinier scale to create systems the size of a grain of sand or a red blood cell.

Millions of these miniature machines, known as microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, may surround us one day, embedded in the concrete foundations of roads and bridges to monitor their conditions, aloft to check for biological warfare agents in the atmosphere, or attached to automobile tires to gauge pressure.

To do their job far from a wall outlet, MEMS devices need power to sense, calculate and transmit the data they collect. But so far the batteries needed to accomplish that have not duplicated the amazing shrinking act of the silicon machines. The power of a battery depends on its volume, and scaling down the size while maintaining the power has proved to be a tremendous challenge.

To address the problem, a handful of researchers have turned from traditional fossil fuels or electrochemical cells to a new source to create micro and nano-size batteries: nuclear power. The hope is that the high-energy particles emitted by radioactive materials as they decay will one day drive a generation of MEMS devices.

Dr. James P. Blanchard, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has spent the last three years and about $450,000 awarded by the Department of Energy to develop prototypes of nuclear microbatteries for MEMS use.

Dr. Blanchard is not splitting atoms to get his nanonukes, which is the first thing he has learned to explain patiently when describing his work. "People hear `nuclear' and `power' and they think `fission' " and explosions, he said. "That's not what we are doing - we are not splitting uranium."

Instead, Dr. Blanchard and an assistant professor and MEMS expert, Dr. Amit Lal, are using minute amounts of a radioactive version of nickel, Nickel-63, in one of the prototypes they have developed. As this substance decays, it produces beta particles, high-energy electrons that now yield nanowatts (one nanowatt is one-billionth of a watt) and may soon, the inventors hope, yield microwatts.

This kind of technology - harnessing radioactive isotopes to create a power source - was used to create the far larger nuclear batteries of NASA's Cassini probe, launched in 1997, to help it travel through the far reaches of space. Shrinking such technology became Dr. Blanchard's goal. "We wanted to show it could be done," he said.

Resigned to alarmed reactions at the mention of the word "nuclear," Dr. Blanchard is quick to explain how little nuclear material is involved. "Batteries headed for another planet make a few hundred watts using an isotope of plutonium and are the size of a dishwasher," he said. "Ours is about as dangerous as a smoke detector" that falls off the wall and breaks. Smoke detectors contain small amounts of radioactive materials.

In one of Dr. Blanchard's prototypes, Nickel-63 dissolved in a solution is poured into micromachined channels; in another, it travels in pyramid-shape indentations in the silicon. The relatively low energy emitted by beta particles does not damage the semiconductor device where the particles collect. The half-life of the isotope - 102 years, meaning that in that time half of the substance will have decayed - makes it attractive for long-term applications.

Dr. Blanchard's group has also worked with alpha-emitting radioisotopes and plans to use them for future experiments. His work on microbatteries was reported last April at the ninth International Conference on Nuclear Engineering in Nice, France.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Fleurial, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., oversees several projects that tap the power of alpha particles, including an effort at the University of Illinois. Alpha particles give off far more energy than beta particles and are therefore a promising source, he said, but in some prototypes they eventually damage the semiconductor diode where they are collected and converted to electricity.

"The work ahead is to find innovative designs that last a long time and are reasonably efficient," Dr. Fleurial said. Because the research has already yielded several prototypes, he said, he is confident that alpha particles will eventually yield powerful batteries. "Most of the power source technologies don't scale down easily," he explained. "These do." The work of Dr. Fleurial and his colleagues was reported last June at the 20th International Conference on Thermoelectrics in Beijing.

Dr. Kris Pister, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is among the scientists who aim to give microbatteries a trial run with a wireless network based on MEMS technology. Dr. Pister is the inventor of smart dust, or networked airborne motes of silicon that are designed to sense, measure and transmit data like temperature, humidity and light intensity.

"Everything is getting smaller in MEMS but the batteries," he said. "The batteries remain the single heaviest and most expensive part."

Dr. Pister said he was considering making smart dust that draws its power from the radioactive isotope tritium and that he had been approached by Trace Photonics, a company in Charleston, Ill., that is interested in shrinking nuclear batteries to smart- dust size.

"Nuclear batteries can potentially give off a staggering amount of energy," he said.

Their longevity also makes them attractive. "Many applications of wireless networks are for places you never want to go back to," Dr. Pister said, like the foundations of tall buildings or the walls of houses. "You don't want to have to dig beneath the sheetrock to change the batteries."

What risks might the batteries pose if, for instance, they were scattered through the walls of a large building to monitor air quality or temperature? "They aren't likely to be very dangerous," said Stephen I. Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "unless you ate them, or threw them in the fire and inhaled the smoke."

Most people are still unaware that their smoke detectors contain radioactive materials, Mr. Schwartz said. Still, he added, if people did become aware that MEMS devices might be powered by nuclear batteries, some of them might be alarmed. "The odds of getting hurt by these devices would be very small," but research on them should not be kept secret, he said.

"Let people know about the work," he said. "Let all the facts be put on the table and then let people decide."

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Administration tiptoes around nuke-test issue

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
January 09, 2002
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2002/jan/09/512865450.html

WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials are walking a fine line on the question of whether to resume underground nuclear bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site.

They say they are committed to a 1992 ban on tests in America -- for now. But President Bush wants a plan in place to more quickly prepare the Test Site for a new generation of tests, should he decide the tests are needed.

It would take two to three years to resume tests at the nation's nuclear weapons labs and at the Test Site, a 1,350-acre complex about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Bush officials want to reduce that time -- some suggest cutting it to a year.

To that end, the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration in December launched a study at the Test Site to examine costs and technical issues associated with speeding up the timetable.

Officials in Nevada say the issue is about readiness.

"There are some of us who believe that we have to dust off the current two-three-year thing and look at it," said Troy Wade, chairman of the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and Business, a trade group that represents Test Site contractors.

Wade, who also directed defense programs for the Energy Department under President Ronald Reagan, warns: "There is a basic point that needs to be focused on and that is that nobody has said let's do a test.

"This whole issue is about capability. We haven't done a test in 10 years. Our (experienced) people are retiring and dying. This nation's defense still is based on nuclear weapons. The question is, can we assure the president that they are safe and reliable?"

Discussions about renewed testing were stirring last year after Bush met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush pledged to cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal by two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads.

The smaller arsenal would need to be actively tested to prove reliability of the remaining bombs, especially given that no tests have been conducted in a decade, defense officials and weapons scientists have said.

The topic of resuming tests surfaced this week in a classified Pentagon document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which outlines the Bush administration's nuclear weapons strategy.

The document was presented to Congress on Tuesday for confidential review. Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., plan to analyze the document; Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., are out of the country.

Reid and Ensign say any proposals to resume tests should be vigorously scrutinized, but they are not opposed to the idea if it is in the national interest.

The Review annually certifies the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But some defense officials have complained such certification has become increasingly difficult since no bomb actually has been detonated underground for 10 years.

Bush has said he has no intention for now of resuming detonations at the Nevada Test Site, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld echoed that Tuesday. But Defense officials, in a classified briefing, expressed concern about the lag time to prepare for testing if it were to resume.

Concern exists within the administration -- and among some members of Congress and the defense establishment -- over the ability to ensure that warheads will work as expected if they are used.

So-called stockpile stewardship by the Energy Department and its nuclear weapons laboratories has become more complex and challenging without tests.

The nuclear plan clearly appeared to raise the specter of renewed testing, test-ban supporters said.

"Many war hawks who are weary of the U.S. decision to drastically cut nuclear arsenals ... are using (concerns about warhead reliability) to champion underground testing," said James Wyerman, executive director of 20/20 Vision, a disarmament advocacy group.

John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, another nuclear proliferation watchdog group, said while the administration's nuclear review does not call for renewed testing it's "part of a pattern that they want to move toward nuclear testing."

As a substitute to testing, the Energy Department is developing technology that will allow scientists to use the world's most powerful computers and most sophisticated lasers to simulate nuclear detonation as they keep track of warhead performance.

But it will be years before those systems are in place.

Recently several internal audits by the Energy Department's inspector general raised concern about its current programs for finding flaws and defects in warheads. Investigators found backlogs of as much as 18 months in testing, inspections and monitoring.

"If these delays continue the department may not be in a position to unconditionally certify the aging nuclear weapons stockpile," wrote DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman.

Sun reporters Benjamin Grove and Ed Koch and the Associated Press contributed to this article.

----

U.S. Aims for 3,800 Nuclear Warheads
Cold War Strategy Is Being Replaced

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 10, 2002; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22393-2002Jan9?language=printer

The Defense Department plans to reduce the number of operational U.S. nuclear warheads from today's 6,000 to 3,800 over the next five years as part of the administration's new strategic policy, a Pentagon official said yesterday.

In announcing those reductions as one result of the Pentagon's year-long Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), Assistant Secretary of Defense J.D. Crouch told reporters the smaller number of deployed nuclear weapons would be augmented by introduction of missile defenses and precision-guided conventional weapons.

Crouch said the traditional Cold War strategy that was based on threats posed almost totally by Russia is being replaced by a "capabilities-based approach" focused on different contingencies not necessarily associated with any particular country.

In this new era, Crouch said, "We expect to be surprised and so we have to have capabilities that would deal with a broad range of [threats]."

The review represented the first time the administration has spelled out how it plans to carry out the president's promise to reduce the operational U.S. nuclear arsenal. At his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in November, President Bush said that by 2012, the number of deployed U.S. warheads would come down to between 1,700 and 2,000.

The initial warhead reductions disclosed by Crouch in yesterday's briefing parallel those that had been planned during the Clinton administration. Of the warheads set to be taken out by 2005, 500 would come from the 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs, each of which carries 10 warheads; 800 would come from the 96 missiles carried on four Trident submarines that have been designated for decommissioning, and 1,000 would come from the removal of two warheads from each of 500 Minuteman III ICBMs, in a move set under terms of the 1993 START II treaty.

Crouch said that many of the warheads removed would be kept as a "responsive force," able to be reinstalled on missiles within weeks or months. He called it "prudent that we have some responsive capability" that would allow some of the warheads to be returned to the active inventory.

Crouch said no decision had been made on which weapons or how many would be kept for the responsive force.

Noting that previous arms control agreements did not specifically call for destruction of weapons, Crouch said, "I believe the Russians are doing a very similar thing."

Critics of the Bush decision to retain weapons have noted that the Clinton administration also stored warheads it reduced, which will soon create a situation where the United States has more nuclear warheads stored than on operational alert.

On the controversial issue of whether the administration is considering any new nuclear weapons designs to attack deeply buried bunkers or caves, Crouch gave an ambiguous answer. "At this point, there are no recommendations in the report about developing new nuclear weapons," he said. Then he added, "We are trying to look at a number of initiatives," one of which "would be to modify an existing weapon to give it greater capability against deep or hard targets."

Crouch also said there was no current plan for resumption of underground nuclear testing and attributed the decision to reduce from the current two years the time necessary to prepare for such a test to a study done during the previous administration.

At the White House, however, press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters that Bush has not ruled out conducting nuclear testing "to make sure the stockpile, particularly as it is reduced, is reliable and safe. So he has not ruled out testing in the future, but there are no plans to do so."

Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information and a specialist in nuclear weapons, said yesterday that although he does not agree with the broad approach taken by the new NPR, its reduction of warheads on alert intercontinental ballistic missiles "is a major improvement."

----

THE US NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW:
PUTTING THE PROMISE OF DISARMAMENT ON THE SHELF

By David Krieger <dkrieger@napf.org>
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002

The Bush administration has conducted the first Nuclear Posture Review since 1994, and has released a classified version of the report to Congress. The report, which has not been made public, provides an updated strategic nuclear plan for the United States. It helps to clarify Bush's promise to President Putin to reduce the deployed US strategic nuclear arsenal by two-thirds to between 2,200 and 1,700 over a ten-year period.

The Bush nuclear posture stands on three legs. First, deactivated nuclear weapons will be kept in storage rather than destroyed. Second, the nuclear weapons that are deactivated will be replaced by powerful and accurate conventional weapons. Third, missile defenses will be deployed ostensibly to protect the US from attack by a rogue state or terrorist.

Despite the planned reductions in the nuclear arsenal, the Bush administration intends to retain a flexible responsive capability by putting a portion (perhaps most) of the deactivated warheads into storage, making them available for future use. The problem with this approach is that it will encourage the Russians to follow the same path and to also keep deactivated nuclear warheads in storage. This means that the promised reductions will not be disarmament at all. It will not lead to the destruction of the nuclear warheads, nor will it be irreversible, as called for by the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It will be subject to reversal at any time for any reason, by the Russians as well as the US.

In essence, the Bush administration is hedging its bets, and simply putting nuclear weapons on the inactive reserve list, ready to be activated should they decide circumstances warrant doing so. It is sending a message to the Russians that we do not trust them and that we do not intend to any longer follow the path of irreversible reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the two countries set forth in verifiable treaties. The Russians will likely follow our lead and also put deactivated nuclear weapons into reserve stocks, where they will be subject to diversion by terrorists. This would be highly unfortunate since the Russians would prefer to make the nuclear reductions permanent and irreversible.

The new nuclear posture also calls for cutting down the time necessary to reinstate a full-scale US nuclear testing program should the administration decide to do so. This also fits the pattern of flexible response. According to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, "Recognizing that the world can change in dangerous and unpredictable ways, we are putting more emphasis than we have in the last 10 or 15 years on that underlying infrastructure that allows you, including in the nuclear area, to rebuild capabilities or build new ones if the world changes."

A second factor driving the Bush administration's nuclear posture is its belief that conventional weapons now have the capability to replace nuclear weapons in deterring an enemy from attacking. Again, according to Mr. Wolfowitz, "We're looking at a transformation of our deterrence posture from an almost exclusive emphasis on offensive nuclear forces to a force that includes defenses as well as offenses, that includes conventional strike capabilities as well as nuclear strike capability." It is anticipated that many of the nuclear warheads being placed in storage will be replaced, particularly on the submarine force, by highly accurate, precision-guided conventional warheads, capable of doing enormous damage.

A third factor figuring prominently in the Bush administration's nuclear posture is its plan to deploy missile defenses. Over the continuing objections of Russia, China and many US allies, President Bush has made clear that he intends to move forward with deployment of ballistic missile defenses that will violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. In December, President Bush gave formal notice to the Russians that the US will withdraw from this treaty in six months.

The Bush administration argues that withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and deployment of ballistic missile defenses will make the US safer, but this is a very unlikely proposition. Instead, it makes the Russians nervous about US intentions, and this nervousness must be increased by the Nuclear Posture Review's emphasis on retaining the deactivated US nuclear warheads in storage. US deployment of ballistic missile defenses will also force the Chinese to expand their nuclear deterrent force with increased targeting of the US. Increases in the Chinese nuclear arsenal may also touch off a new nuclear arms race in Asia.

The bottom line of the new US nuclear posture is that it is built on smoke and mirrors. It will reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons, but it will put them on the shelf ready to be reinstated on short notice. It will also retain enough nuclear weapons to destroy any country and annihilate its people. Recent computer-based estimates generated by the Natural Resources Defense Council indicate that eliminating Russia as a country would take 51 nuclear weapons and China would require 368 due to its large population. On the other hand, the US could be destroyed as a country with 124 nuclear weapons and all NATO countries, including the US, could be destroyed with approximately 300 nuclear warheads.

The recent Nuclear Posture Review tells us that US policymakers are still thinking that nuclear weapons make us safer, when, in fact, they remain weapons capable of destroying us. Their desire to retain flexibility is in reality a recipe for ending four decades of arms control. Their push for ballistic missile defenses is a formula for assuring that US taxpayers enrich defense contractors while diverting defense expenditures from protecting against very real terrorist threats. The Bush promise of nuclear weapons reductions turns out to be a policy for missing the real opportunities of the post Cold War period to not only shelve these weapons but eliminate them forever.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Other articles on this subject can be found at www.wagingpeace.org.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

Tight security rings U.S. nuclear power plants

Thursday, January 10, 2002
Reuters
By James Jelter, Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/01/01102002/reu_46091.asp
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13996/story.htm

SAN FRANCISCO - A day after a dismissed California nuclear power plant worker was arrested for allegedly threatening colleagues, U.S. power industry officials said he stood few chances of ever delivering those threats on the job.

The nuclear power industry, already on high alert following the deadly Sept. 11 attacks, runs its employees through a tough gauntlet of checks aimed at weeding out anyone who might jeopardize plant safety.

The arrest Tuesday of a maintenance mechanic, who last month lost his job at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California, drove home the need for that vigilance.

Acting on allegations that the unidentified 43-year-old had threatened former supervisors and coworkers, Orange County sheriff's deputies found some 200 rifles and ammunition stashed at his Laguna Niguel home and in a nearby rented storage shed.

Plant officials said the man had not threatened the San Onofre plant itself, which lies near the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base just north of San Diego.

San Onofre, which houses two of the nation's 103 reactors, is operated by Southern California Edison, a subsidiary of Edison International.

Nuclear industry officials said internal security breaches were extremely rare, and any charges brought against the man would likely focus on threats to employees, not the plant. The nation's nuclear power plants, because they use potentially deadly radioactive fuel, operate under some of the strictest security measures of any industry in the world.

FORMIDABLE DETERRENTS

"Someone is not going to break into a work place at a nuclear power plant without armed resistance,'' said Jeff Lewis, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on California's central coast. "It's not an easy target whether they are a terrorist or a former employee.''

At Diablo Canyon, security is enforced by guards in black, commando-style uniforms armed with automatic rifles and semi-automatic handguns - common throughout the industry.

"These are not rent-a-cops,'' said Paul Gaukler, an attorney with Shaw Pittman, a Washington law firm that represents utilities operating nuclear power plants. "The security forces go through very detailed training. Two-thirds of all security personnel are former military or law enforcement officers,'' Gaulker said.

Many of the 5,000 guards protecting the nation's nuclear power stations can point to display cases at the plants stuffed with marksmanship awards, a skill several plant operators help them keep polished by providing on-site target ranges.

To ensure the guards don't lose their edge, their rigorous training regime requires that they be able to repel an assault on the plant and assumes that any attack is being aided by someone on the inside. Managing to work under this constant air of suspicion requires strict discipline at the plants and constant surveillance by cameras mounted throughout the plants.

STRICT SCREENING

To gain clearance, the nation's 100,000 nuclear power plant workers must undergo the same background checks used to screen FBI agents. Screeners check their previous employment records and ensure they have never been in trouble with the law. They are also given an extensive psychological evaluation aimed at gauging their emotional stability.

Once past these barriers, they are subjected to random drug and alcohol tests, which the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires be administered to at least 50 percent of plant employees each year. On top of all that, plant supervisors are enrolled in what is called a Continuous Behavior Observation Program designed to help them quickly identify quirky or suspicious behavior among any of their subordinates.

When potential employees clear all of the above, they then face a battery of security checks just to get into the plant. Each day they troop through extremely sensitive metal detectors, show a badge holding a small computer chip full of personal data, and run their hands through a palm scanner.

Security has been further beefed up since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with a ban on plant visits by nonessential personnel, more guards on duty, and new barriers in place to keep cars and trucks a safe distance away in case they are carrying bombs.

Several states have also deployed National Guard troops to keep an extra eye on local reactors, while "nautical exclusion zones'' have been extended to protect lake or seaside plants.

So far the extra efforts have paid off. The last serious effort to penetrate a plant's security zone was in 1993, when a person with a history of mental illness harmlessly crashed a car into the outer gates of the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania.

-------- maryland

Calvert Pressing State on Nuclear Emergency Response Plan

By Raymond McCaffrey and Theola Labbe
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17040-2002Jan8?language=printer

The Calvert County Board of Commissioners would like to know if the state intends to take up a federal commission's offer to provide potassium iodide tablets to help residents guard against radiation in the event of a nuclear power plant mishap.

The commissioners agreed to ask a Maryland Department of the Environment representative to come to their Tuesday meeting about the state's policy concerning the tablets, which can help prevent thyroid damage. The Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is the only such facility in the state.

"Potassium iodide has the potential to help people who have experienced a dose of radiation," Commissioners President David F. Hale (R-Owings) said.

Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a letter to Maryland and other states offering to supply potassium iodide for use in the event of an accident, according to Sue Gagner, an NRC spokeswoman.

"Sheltering and evacuation would be the prime means of protection, with potassium iodide as a supplement to that," Gagner said.

Maryland does not stockpile potassium iodide, but rather believes that evacuation and sheltering are the ways to respond to a nuclear plant emergency, MDE spokesman Richard McIntire said. "Remove yourself from danger as opposed to relying on a pill," McIntire said.

That policy, though, is "being reconsidered," McIntire said. "We haven't made a final ruling yet, but expect to soon."

-------- nevada

Fair trade: Amargosa Valley bovine waste for nuclear waste

By Jeff Ackerman
January 8, 2002
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=NA&Date=20020108&Category=OPINION&ArtNo=201080201&Ref=AR

They say milk does a body good. Especially when it's washed down with a donut.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be drinking as much milk if the feds decide Yucca Mountain will be the official host for the nation's nuclear waste.

Until last week I wasn't aware that 25 percent of Nevada's milk comes from a dairy located just 12 miles from Yucca Mountain. A photograph of the Ponderosa Dairy in Amargosa Valley showed 5,000 black and white milk cows, each with her own private pen, lined up in rows just beyond the shadow of Yucca Mountain range in Southern Nevada.

For the record, I like milk more than I like nuclear waste. I'll admit that straight off the top, just so you know I'm not exactly objective in this debate. Not that I've ever tasted nuclear waste, mind you. I don't need to shove nuclear waste into my piehole to know it's not as good as milk. I've seen photos of people who have consumed too much nuclear waste and they didn't look nearly as healthy as milk drinkers. They seemed much greener and there were little bubbles coming from their noses.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham visited Yucca Mountain on Monday in preparation for making a recommendation as to its suitability for a nuclear dump site. That's good. A fellow ought to at least visit a place before nuking it.

It's unlikely, however, that he stopped at the Ponderosa Dairy on his way to the proposed dump site. He'll sure smell it, though. Five thousand cows not only produce several thousand gallons of milk per day, they also generate a mountain of their own waste. It's non-nuclear, but can make your eyes water if you're not used to the smell.

When I was younger I used to shovel the cow waste in a milk barn just an hour after the "last call" in most California bars. I got room, board and rubber knee-boots. It's a wonder I still drink milk at all after slipping and slopping around in that barn at 3 a.m. each and every day of the week. Cows don't even have the decency to take the Sabbath off.

It got to the point where I hated cows almost more than I hate chickens. I've seen what chickens eat and I wouldn't care one bit if someone gave them a good dose of nuclear radiation.

The general manager of the Ponderosa Dairy, some fellow named Ed, told a Vegas newspaper he was concerned about the nuclear waste contaminating the water system and eventually his cows. Ed knows a thing or two about waste and its effect on water systems. His dairy was accused of dumping more than 1.7 million gallons of cow poop that made its way into the Amargosa River in 1998. It made a whole bunch of Californians, where the Amargosa eventually runs, just want to vomit.

Ed would argue that cow waste is not nearly as bad for you as nuclear waste, which is not something I want to taste test.

I'm sure the nuclear waste fans could produce scientific evidence to show that a little nuclear waste is actually good for cows and milk. Give those guys enough time and money and they could probably prove that Elvis is alive.

But I'm with Ed. He knows bull dung when he smells it. When you're out in the barn up to your knees in cow poop while 99.9 percent of humanity is asleep, you have a lot of time to think. I imagine Ed doing just that one early morning while Bessie was being relieved of her donut juice.

"I don't know about this nuclear waste dump site," Ed probably told Bessie. "What happens if that stuff gets into your water?"

"Don't worry, Ed," Bessie probably answered. (Cows really do talk when you're alone with them at 3 a.m.) "I don't really drink much water, myself. I'm basically a milk cow."

"Still," said Ed, shoving one poop pile into another. "I don't like the idea of these city folk dragging all this nuclear waste past my babies."

"That's sweet of you, Ed," Bessie replied. "But don't just sit there feeling sorry for yourself. Why don't you return the favor?"

And that's pretty much how a million gallons of original Amargosa Dairy waste will make its way to our nation's capital next week. Under Ed's proposed agreement, Yucca will receive one ton of nuclear waste for every 1 million gallons of cow poop Ed ships to Washington, D.C. It's called the GREAT WEST WASTE SWAP AGREEMENT. We'll store their waste and they'll store Ed's.

I hope Ed and Bessie were able to flag down Secretary Abraham's caravan on its way to Yucca Mountain, so they could get an official handshake deal.

It does a body good to see that kind of cooperation.

Jeff Ackerman is publisher and editor of the Nevada Appeal.

----

Nevada Outraged: Yucca Mountain OKd for Nuclear Waste

January 10, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2002/2002L-01-10-04.html

WASHINGTON, DC, A mountain just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, America's premier gambling resort destination, has been approved by the secretary of energy as the nation's long term geological repository for high level nuclear waste.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (Photo courtesy U.S. Government)

Over the objections of Nevada politicians in both parties at every level of government, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today notified Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn and the Nevada Legislature that in 30 days he intends to recommend to President George W. Bush that the Yucca Mountain site is scientifically sound and suitable to hold radioactive waste.

Secretary Abraham said the development of Yucca Mountain "will help ensure America's national security and secure disposal of nuclear waste, provide for a cleaner environment, and support energy security."

Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, a Republican, said he got the news by phone this morning in a telephone call from Secretary Abraham.

"I told him that I am damn disappointed in this decision and to expect my veto," Governor Guinn said. "I explained to him we will fight it in the Congress, in the Oval Office, in every regulatory body we can - we'll take all of our arguments to the courts. This fight is far from over."

Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor)

"I also told him that on behalf of all Nevadans, I am outraged that he is allowing politics to override sound science," the governor said.

"At the conclusion of the call I told the secretary that I think this decision stinks, the whole process stinks, and we'll see him in court."

The state of Nevada filed a lawsuit December 17, 2001 in federal district court in Washington, DC to halt the Yucca Mountain Project. The state alleges that Energy Department's ground rules for judging whether the site is suitable for nuclear waste storage are contrary to what Congress intended.

The state asks that Secretary Abraham be prevented from making recommendations on Yucca Mountain until the ground rules are reviewed by the courts.

Governor Guinn says the state is well prepared with a legal team that includes nuclear scientists, physicists and environmental experts, all with law degrees.

But Secretary Abraham toured the Yucca Mountain site on Monday and says he believes the "science behind this project is sound and that the site is technically suitable for this purpose."

"There are compelling national interests that require us to complete the siting process and move forward with the development of a repository, as Congress mandated almost 20 years ago," Abraham said today.

"A repository is important to our national security," the secretary said. "We must advance our non-proliferation goals by providing a secure place to dispose of any spent fuel and other waste products that result from decommissioning unneeded nuclear weapons, and ensure the effective operations of our nuclear Navy by providing a secure place to dispose of its spent nuclear fuel."

Tunnel inside Yucca Mountain which Secretary Abraham toured on Monday. Here workers conduct scientific tests to determine the safety of the site to contain highly radioactive waste. (Photo courtesy Yucca Mountain Project)

"A repository is important to the secure disposal of nuclear waste. Spent nuclear fuel, high level radioactive waste, and excess plutonium for which there is no complete disposal pathway without a repository are currently stored at over 131 sites in 39 states. We should consolidate the nuclear wastes to enhance protection against terrorists attacks by moving them to one underground location that is far from population centers," he said.

"A repository is important to our energy security," Abraham said. "We must ensure that nuclear power, which provides 20 percent of the nation's electric power, remains an important part of our domestic energy production."

"And a repository is important to our efforts to protect the environment," said Abraham. "We must clean up our defense waste sites permanently and safely dispose of other high level nuclear waste."

Nevada Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat who holds the powerful position of Majority Whip called Abraham's decision "hasty and dangerous."

"It will come despite the growing mountain of evidence that the site is unsuitable and that this site recommendation is premature," said Reid who pins his hopes on President Bush who must agree on what Reid calls "the flawed report."

"After he receives the secretary's report, President Bush has an opportunity to cut through the bureaucratic pseudo-science, see this project for the sham that it is, and do the right thing for America and Nevada by changing course," Reid said.

Reid says the Department of Energy "has wasted $8 billion on Yucca Mountain and has virtually nothing to show for it. Now they want taxpayers to spend another $50 billion to develop a dump they can't prove to be safe. I hope the President will just say no."

If the President agrees the site is suitable for a repository, he would recommend it to Congress. Guinn and the Nevada Legislature would then have 60 days to submit a notice of disapproval to Congress, as they are expected to do.

If the governor and the Legislature decline to veto the site during the 60 day period, Yucca Mountain automatically becomes an approved repository site.

But if Guinn and the Legislature submit a notice of disapproval, Congress has the option of passing a joint resolution to override the veto within the first 90 days of a continuous congressional session. If Congress takes this action, the joint resolution becomes law and the site is approved.

The Energy Department then is required to file a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 90 days after the site recommendation.

Nevada opposition to the Yucca Mountain repository is bipartisan. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, called the decision "grossly irresponsible."

"As outlined by the December 2001 GAO [General Accounting Office] report," she said, "the secretary does not have the scientific data he needs to recommend the site, and any recommendation is therefore scientifically premature."

Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (Photo courtesy Office of the Representative)

Secretary Abraham's reasons "defy common sense," she said. "The so-called 'compelling national interests' cited by the secretary are more effectively addressed by the continued and reinforced storage of spent fuel at the reactor sites themselves. Furthermore, the secretary's claim that the repository would further our national security is completely mistaken. In fact, the transportation of nuclear waste through 43 states, and the construction of a single identifiable repository outside the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country, are gross and needless risks to our national security, and a slap in the face to every Nevadan."

"The secretary's claim that the repository is important to protect the environment is dangerously misleading," said Berkley. "Scientists have uncovered compelling evidence suggesting that the site could be devastating to the environment for tens of thousands of years."

In a document released today along with the notification, the Department of Energy characterizes Yucca Mountain as safe and far enough from Las Vegas so that it does not create a hazardous situation. "The mountain sits on restricted federal land: part of the Nevada Test Site, combined with portions of the Nellis Air Force Range and parcels managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Since January 1951, over 900 U.S. nuclear weapon tests have been conducted at the Nevada Test Site. The U.S. Geological Survey and national laboratories have been studying the area's geology and hydrology since the start of atomic testing...Yucca Mountain would be one of the few nuclear facilities located in a remote area where there are no metropolitan centers within 75 miles."

Yucca Mountain looking west into Crater Flat with volcanic cones in the background (Photo courtesy DOE)

"Water is the main means of transporting radionuclides out of a repository and into the accessible environment. Yucca Mountain is located in one of the most arid and remote deserts in the United States," says the Department of Energy (DOE).

"Yucca Mountain also has many natural barriers that limit or delay what little water is available from entering the emplacement drifts. DOE has designed a set of engineered barriers that take advantage of the natural features and work in concert with the natural environment to isolate waste for tens of thousands of years... Only about one percent of the waste packages are projected to lose their integrity during the first 80,000 years."

But a range of citizens groups object to Yucca Mountain on environmental grounds. Kalynda Tilges of Citizen Alert, a Las Vegas based organization which has taken the lead in this campaign, says her group works with the Sierra Club and with Friends of Nevada Wilderness to educate the public about the dangers of burying nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain - even with engineered barriers.

"What makes the mountain unsafe is that there's a lot of seismic activity in that area," Tilges said Monday. "There's a lot of volcanic cones out there and the DOE has state they have no idea if there's even magma under Yucca Mountain. There's 15 faults that run through the mountain, and they're already shown that water travels through the mountain very, very fast. It's not nearly as dry as they thought it was."

Water travelling through Yucca Mountain would allow radioactivity to escape from the repository, Tilges warns. "It means superheated steam with corrosive minerals in there that will eat right through the canisters and expose the waste into the heat and into the rock. And the Department of Energy still doesn't know how this is all going to react together."

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Nevada Picked for Nuclear Waste Site

January 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Waste.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Addressing the most troubling issue facing the nuclear industry, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada to be the nation's burial site for thousands of tons of nuclear waste.

Abraham concluded the site 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas was ``scientifically sound and suitable'' as a repository for highly radioactive used reactor fuel now kept at commercial reactors in 31 states, a department spokesman said.

A final administration decision will be up to President Bush, who has championed the need for a central disposal site for the waste and is expected to seek a federal license for the site in the coming months.

``The secretary made his decision on sound science,'' said Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis.

Nevada officials, who have fought the proposed dump for more than a decade, have vowed to use every means available to keep the waste out of the state. They argue that despite 13 years of intense scientific study the federal government has not adequately shown that the public can be protected from future radiation.

Abraham, in notifying Nevada's governor of the decision, said ``sound science and compelling national interests'' as well as growing concern about nuclear materials since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks require wastes to be consolidated at a central site.

``There are compelling national interests that require us to complete the siting process and move forward with the development of a (waste) repository,'' Abraham wrote Nevada Gov. Kenneth Guinn.

Earlier in the day White House adviser Karl Rove telephoned Guinn, a Republican and strong opponent of the Yucca project, to attempt to soften the political concerns.

But even a presidential decision is not expected to end the bitter debate over siting of a national waste dump. The final word probably will come from Congress.

Under a 1982 law, which directed the government to assume responsibility for the commercial nuclear industry's highly radioactive waste, only Congress can override the expected Nevada veto.

The site, which still faces a myriad of legal challenges from Nevada, is not expected to be ready to accept waste until 2010 at the earliest. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also must issue a license, a process that could take several years.

The government has spent $6.8 billion to study the Nevada site since 1983. After reviewing three sites, Congress settled on Yucca Mountain in 1987 as the only location to be pursued.

The Nevada site is a mountain of volcanic rock formed 13 million years ago. For nearly two decades, scientists have worked to determine whether its geology, volcanic history and hydrology are suitable for storing materials that will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

Power utilities have promoted the Yucca Mountain site as the most secure and safest place to put the used reactor fuel now kept at reactor sites. More than 40,000 tons of wastes already have built up at the plants with 2,000 tons added each year.

The site, if finally approved and licensed, is expected to hold up to 77,000 tons of waste, buried in a labyrinth of bunkers 900 feet beneath the surface.

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Energy Dept Endorses Nevada Site for Nuclear Waste

January 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-utilities-nuclear.html
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13993/story.htm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department on Thursday approved a remote Nevada site as the final resting place for the nation's vast amounts of radioactive waste, a plan immediately opposed by the Senate's top two Democrats.

A repository would be built under Yucca Mountain, 90 miles (144 km) from Las Vegas, under the plan endorsed by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. The site would store 70,000 tons of radioactive materials from the nation's nuclear power plants for about 10,000 years deep within the mountain.

Abraham telephoned Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, a Republican, on Thursday afternoon to inform him of the long-awaited decision.

``I am damn disappointed in this decision,'' Guinn said in a statement. ``At the conclusion of the call I told the secretary that I think this decision stinks, the whole process stinks and we'll see him in court.''

Abraham said he will forward a formal recommendation to President Bush in 30 days, the time allotted by law for Guinn to review the controversial proposal.

NATIONAL SECURITY CITED

Abraham emphasized that a single U.S. waste site was crucial for national security since the Sept. 11 attacks in Washington and New York, which raised public and political concern about guarding the nation's radioactive material.

``There are compelling national interests that require us to complete the siting process and move forward with the development of a repository, as Congress mandated almost 20 years ago,'' Abraham said in a letter to the governor.

The Yucca Mountain site, which will not be in operation until at least 2010, will help ``ensure America's national security,'' the Energy Department said in a statement.

Used fuel from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants is piling up at a rate of about 2,000 tons a year, according to the U.S. utility industry, which has pressed the federal government to designate Yucca Mountain as a waste repository.