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NUCLEAR
Nuclear capability becoming easier
US fears groups may get radiation devices
Experts find traces of depleted uranium from NATO ammunition
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
Iraq has few weapons left, says former UN inspector
Military force against N Korea ruled out
North Korea accuses South of military provocation
Crunch Time Approaching on Oil for Nuclear N.Korea
Weapons-grade Plutonium Disposition in Russia
Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants
Deadlock Broken on Homeland Security Bill
MILITARY
After the War - [Bosnia]
Nations seek reduced germ-warfare threat
Attack on Iraq
Blair says terror warnings are coming 'almost daily'
Pull troops from overseas, Canadian senators say
Iraq Said to Try to Buy Antidote Against Nerve Gas
Top Chinese leaders not listed on panel
Colombian Army Launches Operation to Rescue Bishop
Iraq war 'could kill 500,000'
Provision Could Trigger Iraq War
US warns war on Iraq may start before Christmas
U.S. Back On Ground In Northern Iraq
The shape of an Iraq invasion
Iraqi Exile Groups' Efforts Stalled by Intense Rivalries
Officials In Iraq Condemn Resolution
Iraqi lawmakers reject U.N. resolution
Israelis fear war crimes arrests
Israel's Netanyahu Vows if Elected to Expel Arafat
Israel Fires Missiles on Gaza City
NATO summit to discuss possible Iraq action
Putin brushes aside European advice on Chechnya
Chechnya Is Caught in Grip of Russia's Antiterror Wrath
U.S. Looks to Expand Covert Forces
Sweden expels Russian jet 'spies'
Russian Convicted of Spying
U.N. Urges U.S. to End Cuba Embargo
What's Troubling U.S. War Vets?
Unilateral attack on Iraq backed by Church
Pentagon Leakers Strike Again
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
Officials Question FBI Terror Readiness
Items Prohibited on Airlines
Pakistanis ask U.S. to halt execution
Ashcroft's Narco-Terror War
Voice on Tape Portrayed as bin Laden's Praises Recent Attacks
Blair Warns of New Qaeda Threats
F.B.I. Attacks Firearm Agency in Draft Report
U.S. Estimates Terror Attacks Cost
ENERGY AND OTHER
Solar Power Generated Atop Navy Carport
Hydrogen or 'hot air'?
A Big Victory by California in Energy Case
ACTIVISTS
Police open fire on Afghan student protest
Police fire in air to quell Kabul student protest
Student protests mount in Iran despite Khamenei threat of force
Protesters reject Shell's slick change of face
Police Fire in Air to Quell Kabul Student Protests
Venezuela Protest Turns Violent
U.S. Bishops Grapple With the Morality of War With Iraq
Two police injured as hundreds of antinuclear activists protest
-------- NUCLEAR
Nuclear capability becoming easier
By Ralph Joseph
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-17129695.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A prominent Pakistani nuclear scientist who has criticized his nation for developing nuclear weapons says he doubts North Korea needs Pakistan's help to make its own atom bombs.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University, said: "Nuclear technology is not very difficult. In a few years, almost every country in the world is going to have it."
His remarks follow reports that Pakistan supplied North Korean with equipment, including centrifuge machines used to make weapons-grade uranium in exchange for rockets and missile technology.
President Pervez Musharraf denied the reports.
Mr. Hoodbhoy, who has criticized his own country and India for their game of nuclear brinkmanship in the recent military standoff, conceded that U.S. officials had a seemingly plausible theory of a Pakistani-North Korean exchange in the 1990s.
"You know, the Pakistani Ghauri missile is based on the North Korean Nodong," he said.
It was conceivable that Islamabad paid for the missile technology by supplying Pyongyang with uranium-enrichment technology, but the nuclear programs of the two countries are so small that it would be easy for both sides to hide any collaboration. "Only those who are involved would know," he said.
North Korea recently shocked the world by admitting to U.S. officials that it had begun refining bomb-grade uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement to give up nuclear weapons.
Mr. Hoodbhoy said there are sources other than Pakistan for the North Koreans to acquire uranium-enrichment technology. "There are the Chinese, for example," he said.
An Indian analyst, meanwhile, suggested that Pakistan had earlier acquired its uranium-enrichment technology by stealing it from the Russians.
B. Raman, director of the Institute of Topical Studies in Chennai, India, said in an article reprinted in the Lahore newspaper the Weekly Independent that a Pakistani intelligence operative, retired Maj. Gen. Sultan Habib, "had distinguished himself in the clandestine procurement and theft" of nuclear material while posted as defense attache in the Pakistani Embassy in Moscow from 1991 to 1993.
Mr. Raman does not provide his sources but said Gen. Habib was later "posted as ambassador to North Korea to oversee the clandestine nuclear and missile cooperation between North Korea and Pakistan."
-------- accidents and safety
US fears groups may get radiation devices - report
REUTERS USA:
November 12, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18540/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is concerned that devices used in the former Soviet Union to measure the effects of radiation on plants may fall into the hands of terror groups that could use the material to make so-called dirty bombs, The Washington Post reported yesterday.
U.S. and international nuclear experts are searching the former Soviet republics for the lead-shielded canister devices that contained radioactive cesium 137 in the form of pellets or a fine powder, the newspaper said.
Some of the tests the devices were used for were to determine farming conditions after a nuclear attack.
The total number of experimental devices put in the countryside by Soviet scientists during the 1970s range from 100 to 1,000, an official from the International Atomic Energy Agency told the Post. Only nine of the devices have been found so far.
A few ounces of cesium 137 put into a conventional explosive would make a "dirty bomb" that could contaminate a large area with radiation. A computer simulation showed a "dirty bomb" attack on New York City with about 1.75 ounces (50 grams) of cesium could spread radioactive fallout over 60 city blocks, the paper said.
Victims nearest the blast would be the initial casualties, but the relocation of people and businesses and the cleanup could cost tens of billions of dollars, the paper said.
-------- depleted uranium
Experts find traces of depleted uranium from NATO ammunition on three sites in Bosnia
By Aida Cerkez-Robinson,
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
From: "Steve Taylor" Steve@miltoxproj.org
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - U.N. experts have found three radioactive hotspots in Bosnia resulting from ammunition containing depleted uranium used during NATO airstrikes in 1995.
The team found a presence of radioactivity at two spots in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici and one at Han Pijesak in the Bosnian Serb republic, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) said Monday in a statement. The experts found the spots after using highly sensitive instruments to investigate 14 sites in Bosnia for a month.
They advised the Bosnian government to start decontaminating the three sites and educating the population about the hazard.
During the 1995 bombings of Serb positions around Sarajevo, NATO aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that is effective for piercing armor. According to the Bosnian government, some 10,800 of such rounds - 30 mm armor-piercing projectiles - were fired in Bosnia.
Buried in the soil, such ordnance can contaminate ground water, leading to up to a 100-fold increase in uranium levels in drinking water.
"We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks," said Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of the UNEP task force.
The team detected depleted uranium-related materials and dust inside buildings that are currently used by local business or, like in Han Pijesak, by Bosnian Serb army troops as storage facilities, he said.
Before using facilities targeted by ammunition containing depleted uranium, the area has to be properly cleaned up to prevent unnecessary health risks. Such decontamination should be done by experts, Haavisto said in his statement.
The 17 international experts were invited by the Bosnian government to investigate rumors claiming depleted uranium still present in the environment may have adversely affected the health of not only the local population but also of the international peacekeepers in Bosnia. The rumors had prompted several governments to investigate their troops serving in this Balkan country.
A medical sub-team composed of experts from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Army also visited several hospitals in Bosnia, collecting medical data and statistics.
A full report is to be published in March 2003.
----
Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
[DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation]
By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
Depleted Uranium World Map: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20021112/DepletedUrnaiumMap.gif
SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.
They also are radiating nuclear energy.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently diagnosed with leukemia.
In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name.
Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.
Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.
Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995.
With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.
THE DANGERS
Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.
Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a radiation expert, holds a Geiger counter next to a hole in an Iraqi tank destroyed by depleted uranium weapons in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The shell holes show 1,000 times the normal background radiation level. DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.
The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.
But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.
A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.
Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.
The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."
Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians during and after combat.
Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems.
The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions.
But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is "40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium."
The report also said, "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation. . . ."
In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, "The U.S. Military Services use DU munitions because of DU's superior lethality against armor and other hard targets."
It said DU munitions are "war reserve munitions; that is, used for combat and not fired for training purposes," with the exception that DU munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes.
In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Hamdin and his brother Amhid are receiving follow-up treatment after being treated successfully for leukemia two years ago at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children.
Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations.
Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996, contends that DU "violates the existing law and customs of war."
She said there are four rules derived from all of humanitarian law regarding weapons:
•Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle, defined as legal military targets of the enemy in war. Weapons may not have an adverse effect off the legal field of battle.
•Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A weapon that is used or continues to act after the war is over violates this criterion.
•Weapons may not be unduly inhumane.
•Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment.
"Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules," Parker said last week.
On Oct. 17, 2001, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., introduced a bill calling for "the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions. . . ."
More than a year later, the bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Barbara Lee, D-Ca.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash. -- remains in committee awaiting comment from the Defense Department.
THE STUDIES
Gulf War veterans faced a wide array of potentially toxic materials during the war: smoke from oil and chemical fires, insecticides, pesticides, vaccinations and DU.
Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase (1990-1991) of the Gulf War, at least 20,6861 have applied for VA medical benefits. As of May 2002, 159,238 veterans have been awarded service-connected disability by the Department of Veterans Affairs for health effects collectively known as the Gulf War Syndrome.
Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I The woman in the foreground shares a room with four other cancer patients at the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra. The patient lying on the bed behind died earlier in the day on which this photograph was taken.
There have been many studies on Gulf War Syndrome over the years, as well as on possible long-term health hazards of DU munitions. Most have been inconclusive. But some researchers said the previous studies on DU, conducted by groups and agencies ranging from the World Health Organization to the Rand Corp. to the investigative arm of Congress, weren't looking in the right place -- at the effects of inhaled DU.
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August issue of Military Medicine medical journal.
The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU.
The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.
That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview last week.
THE ACTIVIST
Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the DU cleanup operation.
Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions.
"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.
Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.
Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.
"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."
Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed."
Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.
"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.
"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it's all arrogance.
"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."
BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ
At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares. The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.
There were photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities went on and on. There also were photos of cancer patients.
Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths.
On a tour of one ward of the hospital, doctors pointed out boys and girls who were suffering from leukemia. Most of the children die, the doctors said, because there are insufficient drugs available for their treatment.
There was one notable exception, a young boy whose family was able to buy the expensive drugs on the black market.
Al-Ali said it defies logic to absolve DU of blame when veterans of the Gulf War and of the fighting in the Balkans share common illnesses with children in southern Iraq.
"The cause of all of these cancers and deformities remains theoretical because we can't confirm the presence of uranium in tissue or urine with the equipment we have," said Al-Ali. "And because of the sanctions, we can't get the equipment we need."
Dr. Doug Rokke, a U.S. Army health physicist assigned to help clean up depleted uranium after the Persian Gulf War, will speak in Seattle on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at University Baptist Church, Northeast 47th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast. Rokke is on a six-state speaking tour sponsored by The Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq, and co-sponsored by the Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield, Mass.
P-I foreign desk editor Larry Johnson can be reached at 206-448-8035 or larryjohnson@seattlepi.com
--
Re: Article "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium"
Vancouver, November 12, 2002
From: "Piotr Bein" <piotr.bein@imag.net>
Mr. Larry Johnson Foreign Desk Editor Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Congratulations on an informative article. It is not easy to write about a complex subject for the average public. But without accurate information the public will remain vulnerable to propaganda.
A few comments in priority order:
1. DU anti-armour munitions familiar from the Gulf and Balkan wars would not be the prime weapon in an air attack on Iraq. Hardened and deeply buried targets (command centres, missile launchers, supply depots, production and storage of weapons of mass destruction) call for bunker-busters and earth penetrators. Over 20 weapon systems in this family are currently stocked in Western countries in sufficient quantities for a major offensive.
These weapons had been kept secret, but some information leaked out. Most likely they contain large quantities of uranium metal (depleted or not), since an extremely dense material is needed in a bomb shield to penetrate earth or concrete. Uranium could also be used in multiple warheads stacked one after another within the uranium shield. The warhead would survive partial penetration into a target thanks to the shield, and then detonate one penetrator at a time, making further advance into the target, concluded with a charge that destroys the inside contents of the target with help of uranium powder, since the metal ignites easily.
However effective they might be in destroying enemy's capability in weapons of mass destruction, the bunker busters and earth penetrators would have very severe health effects. Compared to DU ammunition which contains between 0.3 kg (30 mm caliber) to several kg (120 mm caliber) of uranium metal per bullet, each bomb or guided missile against buried and hardened targets may contain tens to thousands times more uranium.
The contamination by uranium dust and fine particles produced from explosions of these weapons would also be up to thousands times more severe. When used near troops (own, allied or enemy's) or population centres, these weapons would become weapons of mass destruction. In any case, they would be weapons of indiscriminate effects, since the contamination stays practically indefinitely and also spreads out into the environs.
Why would a civilized country use weapons that contravene the customs, laws and conventions on war? Because the uranium in them does the job as well or better than more expensive materials like tungsten, and would be difficult to detect, if formulated in proportions (99.3% U238, 0.7% U235) resembling omnipresent natural uranium.
The weapons have been tested on ranges and in wars, and were very likely used in bombing of Iraq to date, and recently in Afghanistan.
Reports on the uranium weapons by an independent UK researcher Dai Williams are at www.eoslifework.co.uk/
Recent measurements of uranium levels in Afghan environment by Dr. Asaf Djurakovic (www.umrc.net/ in your footnotes) indicate that these weapons must have been used there.
2. Your article gives an impression that the authorities do not have conclusive proofs of the hazards of conventional uranium weapons (depleted or not). At the bottom is a digest of a sample of such official documents.
3. The article states that radioactivity is one kind of hazard from DU, and uranium oxide dust is another, implying that the latter is not radioactive. An element remains radioactive in chemical compunds and regardless of the physical form. Thus metallic fine particles (as from chiseling a chunk of DU metal) pose the same hazards as the fine oxide dust. The fine dust's radioactive hazard inside the body is the alpha radiation. Alpha radiation is stopped by clothing and skin, so it can not harm from the outside of the body.
Inside the body, the particles act as toxic AND radioactive substance -- a fact conveniently omitted by the pro-DU propaganda.
The DU dust created on impact or at high temperature is a mix of soluble and insoluble uranium oxide particles, including ceramic. The latter ones are particularly harmful, because they do not break down into soluble compounds. They also have sharp edges that catch onto the tissue.
4. DU is not a pure Uranium 238 (U238) that would be "only" 60% as radioactive as enriched uranium (Uranium 235). It contains 99.8% of U238, 0.2% of U235 and small amounts of other highly radioactive and toxic elements, such as plutonium that should not be in DU at all, according to industry and military specifications. The trace components of DU are so powerful that their joint effects on health are comparable to the effects of U238 in DU metal. That the US authorities allowed these elements to enter the DU metal in ammunition (and other weapons and uses?) is a crime by itself.
5. The map is incomplete. Another category are civilian airplane crashes in which DU counterweights burned and contaminated the sites with DU dust. The most famous airplane crashes involving release of DU are Lockerbie (in UK) and El-Al (in Holland). At least two accidental releases from DU weapon manufacturing happened in England. If an "accidental use" in Germany (presumably the American A-10 crash in a residential area) is shown, then all the other known releases should be noted. Of course nobody knows how many accidents remain covered up.
DU ammunition was used on military ranges in Scotland and Wales, and in the Middle East in the Yom Kippur war between Israel and Egypt. DU weapons were used on US military ranges on Viesques Island (Puerto Rico) and Okinawa Island (Japan), which are marked "accidental use" on your map. Over 30 other countries produce and use DU weapons, so there must be more dots, circles and triangles on the map. NATO has admitted to using DU ammunition in Southern Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro, but not in Macedonia.
6. "20,6861" should read 206,861.
Let's hope that you will soon be able to produce a sequel on hazards of the other uranium weapons. Not only the health of own troops and local populations are at stake, but also human health worldwide, as the uranium particles travel indiscriminately, driven by winds, water movements and electromagnetic fields.
I would be pleased to assist you in identifying sources of information for your research.
Yours sincerely,
Piotr Bein, PhD, PEng Vancouver, Canada Member, Institute for Risk Research, University of Waterloo, Canada
Excerpt from a paper "Propaganda for DU -- a Crime against Humankind" by Piotr Bein and Pedja Zoric to "Facts about DU" conference, Prague, Czech Republic, November 2001,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/files/DUPraha.doc; revised for a monograph "Environmental Politics of the 21st Century" being prepared by Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade.
For years, standard textbooks on radioactivity state that a thin piece of paper or the skin can stop alpha particles - the main radioactivity of DU, emitted by uranium 238 atoms. So they are not dangerous to the body as long they remain external. However, if they are inhaled or enter the body with food or through open wounds, they become exceptionally dangerous, since they emit much energy to each cell, seriously damaging it. Although beta particles penetrate tissue to the depth of several centimetres, the resulting biological damage is significantly smaller compared to that of alpha particles. Gamma and X-ray radiation is weakened by the tissue only to a small degree. The biological effect of one absorbed quantum of this radiation in the tissue is the same as from one quantum of beta radiation.
The standard texts are also clear that long-term effects of accumulated small exposures transfer to future generations. Every dose is harmful and can cause cancer or genetic changes after years, therefore one must always avoid unnecessary exposure and maintain doses in smallest quantities possible.
The risks posed by depleted uranium (U238) and a mix of uranium isotopes with majority U238 are similar. Official US and UK government documents have been warning about toxic-radioactive risks of depleted uranium, as follows,
- A 1983 literature study by the Batelle Pacific Nothwest Laboratory for the US Department of the Army, clearly discerns the two types of DU risk: "The chemical toxicity is the critical limit for soluble uranium compounds, and the critical organ is the kidney. Insoluble compounds present a [radiological] hazard primarily to the lungs [...] The exposure limits for toxicity are more conservative than most of the radiological limits and thus protect from either type of insult."
- In 1984, US Federal Aviation Agency document cautions the investigators of aircraft crashes against the hazard from DU in counterweights of civilian airplanes: particles inhaled or ingested are toxic and can cause long-term irradiation of the internal tissue.
- Six months before the Gulf War, a Science Applications International Corporation report wrote, "Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."
- Shortly after the Gulf War in March 1991, a memo from US Defence Nuclear Agency stated that alpha particles emitted from DU dust created from exploded DU ammunition pose a health risk, but beta particles from DU shrapnel and from intact DU bullets are a serious hazard to health.
- In the early nineties, UK Atomic Energy Authority warned that if all of the DU fired by tanks in the Gulf War was inhaled, "there could be half a million deaths as a result by 2000." Tanks fired only about 8% of all DU used in that war.
- 1993 US General Accounting Office report GAO/NSIAD-93-90 stated, "Inhaled insoluble [uranium] oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and toxicity risk."
- 1995 US Army Environmental Policy Institute report warned, "Toxicologically, DU poses a health risk when internalized. Radiologically, the radiation emitted by DU results in health risks from both external and internal exposures [...] If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."
- An incident involving pulverization of metallic DU occurred at the Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in in 1999. The following note was sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: "At 1000 on 07/26/99, USAF personnel were performing maintenance on a C-141 cargo aircraft aileron. A technician was found using a hammer and chisel to remove installed depleted uranium counterweights from the aileron. This process produced dust and debris which was scattered by a nearby fan. The technician using a hammer and chisel on the depleted uranium was in violation of several rules. Upon discovery of this activity, the technician was told to immediately stop work. The area has been secured and decontamination procedures initiated."
- January 2001, leak: UK Ministry of Defense was secretly testing for radiation poisoning among British soldiers just months before it sent troops to Kosovo. At the time the ministry was refusing screening for Gulf War veterans. The disclosure went much further than an earlier leak that showed only that officers knew 4 years earlier about the risk of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers from DU shells. The industry is also well aware of the risks from airborne contamination by DU. Paul Loewenstein, vice president of Nuclear Metals Inc. (now Starmet Corporation, the prime US supplier of DU metal and related products) wrote: "The main hazard to health occurs in those fabrication steps where finely divided particles (dust or oxides) can become airborne. In operations such as melting and casting, machining, grinding, pickling and heating without using a protective atmosphere or vacuum, it is essential to provide extensive ventilation and to monitor worker's breathing zones. Vents and fume hoods that protect workers are exhausted through carefully monitored filter systems. Workers must change footwear and clothing when leaving areas where finely divided uranium is present."
Boeing Corporation safety guide for DU counterweights in aircraft and missiles advises:
"4.1.2 Most heavy metals, such as uranium, are toxic to humans depending on the amount introduced into the body. For short-term (acute) exposures, the toxicological effects are the primary concern, and acute exposures to significant amounts of uranium may result in kidney damage.
4.1.3 The principal radiological hazard associated with uranium is due to high linear energy transfer of the alpha particles its radionuclides and daughters emit. A chronic exposure to these radionuclides result in an increased risk of cancer, typically in the bones, kidney, and lungs, since these are the organs where uranium is deposited. [...]
6.2.5 Airborne Contamination
[I]t is possible for significant levels of airborne contamination to result from activity that vigorously disturbs the surface, such as vigorous floor sweeping in a contaminated area or a direct, high-volume airflow across such an area. Failure to control airborne contamination could result in inhalation of the contamination and spread of contamination to other areas. [...]
12.2.3 Wear a respirator [...] whenever entering areas with airborne DU dust particles."
-------- inspections
Iraq has few weapons left, says former UN inspector
12.11.2002
REUTERS
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3003936&msg=emaillink
UNITED NATIONS - Iraq had few weapons left when inspectors were last in the country but to find new dangerous arms may take months, despite pressure for quick results, a former chief UN arms inspector said on Monday (Tuesday NZ time).
Rolf Ekeus, who led the inspectors from 1991 to mid-1997, said the arms experts, expected to resume work later this month, could find Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction, if they were given enough time.
A UN Security Council resolution, adopted last Friday, gives the inspectors until Feb. 21 at the latest to file an initial report but they must tell the council of any serious violations sooner.
Many believe the United States, if it attacks Iraq as it has threatened if Baghdad does not fully disarm, wants to do so before March when the weather begins to get hot.
"It will work but only if they are allowed to take their time. And I am not quite sure that the political scenario is organized so that we have time," Ekeus told the "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" public television programme.
He said he fellow Swede Hans Blix, the current chief inspector, and his Egyptian counterpart from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, had a "terrible burden" on their shoulders as their word could mean war.
"They are fine, reflecting men with good minds," he said. "I think we must give them time, and with time I think they will be successful."
Ekeus, like Blix earlier this month, questioned a crucial declaration Iraq has to submit by December 8. Ekeus said Iraq could meet the deadline in drawing up a list of dangerous weapons it still might have.
But the declaration also demands Iraq list civilian chemical and biological components, which Ekeus characterized as a "vague and complex" operation, ranging from ingredients in soap detergents to petrochemical and medical industries.
The United States, at Blix's urging, had considered giving Iraq more time for this part of the declaration but did not.
Ekeus said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would probably make a relatively sound declaration of weapons issues. "But on the other area, which is huge, there will be a very selective approach and space for a lot of dispute."
Ekeus said most of the weapons were discovered during his term in office and those of his successor, Australian Richard Butler. But in the nearly four years inspectors had been out of the country, Iraq could have "anything from zero to quite a considerable quantity of weapons."
Before inspectors can go back to Iraq, the Baghdad government by Friday has to accept the resolution. The Iraqi parliament, currently meeting on the resolution. has heaped scorn on its provisions but not issued a decision.
The first teams of about two dozen technicians, are scheduled to leave for Cyprus, a staging base, on Friday.
Blix and ElBaradei plan to accompany this group, which is to set up offices, laboratories, communications and transport, to Baghdad on Nov. 18. About a week later, on Nov. 25, a dozen inspectors are expected to arrive and make some spot checks.
Another 250 potential inspectors around the world have undergone training courses and are on call. Of this group about 80 to 100 are expected to be in Iraq by Dec. 23.
When the inspectors left in December 1998, the eve of a US-British bombing raid, they had accounted for or destroyed equipment and materials that could be used in making nuclear bombs, 817 of 819 Scud missiles, 39,000 chemical munitions and more than 3,000 tonnes of agents and precursors.
But unaccounted for were 500 mustard-gas shells, 150 aerial bombs, 20 tonnes of complex growth material that could be used to nourish biological weapons and 200 tonnes of chemicals for the nerve agent VX.
"For me, I think it's a high probability that he (Saddam) has tried to strengthen his production capabilities ... with regard first to chemical weapons but also with regard to biological warfare agents," Ekeus said.
-------- korea
Military force against N Korea ruled out
November 12 2002
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/11/1036308630914.html
Washington: United States officials say Washington has no plan to invade North Korea but have warned Pyongyang it will not be business as usual if it refuses to scrap its nuclear weapons program.
Their comments came amid news reports of a planned cut-off of heavy oil delivery.
"We're not threatening military force because we don't need to threaten military force right now," the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told CNN on Sunday.
"The President has made this clear when he was in [South] Korea earlier this year; he made it clear that the United States does not intend to invade North Korea. That has not changed."
The US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on Sunday would not confirm reports that the US planned to cut off delivery of fuel oil to Pyongyang. But she made it clear that refusal to co-operate would come at a price.
"I don't want to get ahead of the diplomacy. We're talking to the other members of the Korean Energy Development Organisation, which is actually the organisation KEDO, that provides these oil shipments.
"The North Koreans should understand that it's not going to be business as usual as we move forward here. But we'll look at the specifics with the people who are involved in this decision."
Japanese press reports said the US assistant secretary of state James Kelly told Japanese legislators the US Congress was unlikely to pass a new budget that included funds to provide fuel oil for North Korea, which it has done since 1994.
Mr Kelly was reported to have added that a decision on whether to deliver the latest shipment of oil would be made at a KEDO meeting in New York on Thursday attended by officials from the US, Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
The latest shipment of fuel oil left Singapore for North Korea on Wednesday. It will take 10 to 12 days to reach North Korea but the KEDO executive board can recall the vessel while it is at sea, diplomats have said.
Mr Kelly's reported remarks came after meetings in Tokyo with the South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik and a Japanese Foreign Ministry official, Hitoshi Tanaka, to resolve the nuclear weapons crisis with North Korea.
Calls for a halt to economic aid to North Korea have mounted since Washington said last month that Pyongyang had admitted it was secretly developing nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 deal.
Pyongyang countered that Washington itself had violated the deal by threatening it with nuclear weapons and listing the country as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.
----
North Korea accuses South of military provocation
Tuesday November 12, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/021112/1/34nd1.html
North Korea accused South Korea of dangerous military provocation by sending warships into its territorial waters and moving tanks and guns along their border.
Pyongyang's government mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said South Korean warships had infiltrated Northern waters off the eastern coast of the peninsula twice on Tuesday.
It also said South Korean forces had staged tank and armoured car manoeuvres and brought self-propelled guns to the border that has divided the country for half-a-century.
The charges were made amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula following US revelations last month that North Korea is running a nuclear weapons programme in violation of a 1994 arms control accord with the United States, the so-called Agreed Framework.
North Korea's accusations also came ahead of a meeting in New York on Thursday on whether to continue economic aid to Pyongyang in the form of heavy fuel oil deliveries.
KCNA said it was clear that the Southern "provocations" were aimed at raising tension between the rival states and warned Seoul it should "think twice" about the consequences.
The South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Ministry dismissed the reports of provocation as groundless.
"There was a routine operation in the West Sea today by South Korean patrol boats and North Korean fishing boats were spotted in operation near the Northern Limit Line," the inter-Korean maritime border, a joint chiefs official said.
"A South Korea navy ship approached the North Korean fishing boat to see if they violated the maritime border under the bad weather conditions," he said, flatly denying any provocation on the part of the navy.
Five months ago North and South fought a naval battle in the Yellow Sea after North Korean vessels entered South Korean waters. Five South Korean sailors died and the North suffered some 30 casualties.
The confrontation briefly interrupted bilateral efforts to improve ties that have accelerated in subsequent months and brought economic accords and agreements on relinking road and railways.
Engagement was once more thrown in doubt by Washington's revelation last month that the North had admitted to runnning an enriched uranium-based atomic programme. The news sparked alarm among North Korea's Asian neighbours, who joined the United States in demanding that Pyongyang dismantle its atomic programme.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the North pledged to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in return for 500,000 tonnes a year of heavy fuel oil and the construction of two light-water reactors by an international consortium known as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Corporation (KEDO).
Thursday's New York meeting of KEDO's executive board, made up of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, could decide to stop the shipments of oil to the energy-starved North. The move would effectively end the accord, which is already seriously compromised by North Korea's violations.
The United States has taken a hard line in its latest standoff with North Korea, and has not ruled out economic or other sanctions while South Korea and Japan have expressed hope that they can resolve the issue through dialogue while continuing to develop economic and diplomatic engagement with the Stalinist state.
--------
Crunch Time Approaching on Oil for Nuclear N.Korea
November 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north-diplomacy.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. envoy on North Korea departed South Korea for China Tuesday, leaving unresolved differences between Washington and Seoul about how to respond to communist North Korea's nuclear arms program.
World attention is focused on Iraq's looming deadline for complying with a U.N. resolution on arms inspections, but crunch time is also approaching for efforts to disarm North Korea, a second member of President Bush's ``axis of evil.''
With a tanker of fuel oil headed to North Korea and a pivotal allied meeting opening in New York Thursday, a Seoul official said South Korea and the United States were apart on whether to continue supplying North Korea with energy aid under a 1994 agreement which North Korea's new arms program has violated.
``There are still differences between the U.S. and South Korean governments over whether to allow the oil shipment,'' an official at South Korea's presidential Blue House told Reuters, requesting anonymity.
``South Korea's position is that the current shipment should go ahead and then we'll decide, based on North Korea's reaction,'' the official said after the visit by U.S. envoy James Kelly.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has made his ``Sunshine Policy'' of engaging the North one of the hallmarks of his single five-year term, which ends in February after an election for his successor next month.
Kelly, who flew to China Tuesday, made no public remarks in Seoul. A Bush administration official said the United States was still consulting South Korea and Japan on the fuel-oil shipment.
KEDO DECISION LOOMS
The stated position of the three allied governments is the issue will be resolved at an executive board meeting of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to open Thursday in New York. The meeting will be attended by U.S., Japanese, South Korean and European Union officials.
KEDO is implementing the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year and two light-water reactors that cannot easily be converted to produce weapons material.
Washington, which funds the oil supplies while allies finance the reactors, has not announced a decision on the oil shipments.
``There is still time to deal with North Korean fuel shipments should KEDO decide to do it. KEDO is looking at the case. I don't want to get ahead of the diplomacy here because we're talking to KEDO about it,'' said the senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But there are some U.S. voices calling for turning back the latest shipment of fuel oil that left Singapore on November 6 for the 10-12 day voyage to North Korea.
The KEDO executive board can recall the vessel while it is at sea, diplomats have said.
Kelly has said on several occasions the disclosure about North Korea's nuclear arms scheme has sapped support in the U.S. Congress for funding next year's fuel-oil aid. Some EU lawmakers have called for freezing Europe's KEDO contribution.
``EXTREME SCENARIO''
Chang Sun-sup, the South Korean executive member of KEDO, was quoted by a newspaper as playing down differences over the oil.
``Turning around the ship loaded with oil already on its way to the North is an extreme scenario,'' the Korea Times quoted Chang as saying Monday before leaving for New York.
The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, which are within range of North Korean ballistic missiles, met in Seoul Monday and later issued a statement underscoring their shared fear that halting the oil supplies would provoke Pyongyang.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong agreed KEDO was important and effective and the issue ``should not be decided in a hasty way'' a Japanese official said.
North Korea's stance, restated almost daily by its state media, is that resolving the nuclear issue will require Washington to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Pyongyang and guarantee the sovereignty of Kim Jong-il's communist rule.
The United States has said there is nothing to talk about until North Korea has verifiably abandoned a uranium enrichment program it said last month it was running.
-------- russia
Weapons-grade Plutonium Disposition in Russia
Bellona Position Paper
Zackary Moss,
2002-11-12 13:03
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke-weapons/nonproliferation/27158.html
OSLO - In September 2000, the United States and Russia each agreed to render 34 metric tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Bellona's position paper examines plutonium disposition in Russia.
The governments of the Russia Federation and the United States (US) have embarked on a programme to use weapons-grade plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in nuclear reactors. In September 2000, an agreement between the US and Russia was reached for each side to render 34 metric tonnes (MT) of surplus weapons-grade plutonium unsuitable for nuclear weapons.
Weapons-grade plutonium disposition
According to a Federation of American Scientists' Public Interest Report, 200-270MT of weapons-grade plutonium exited worldwide in 1996.1 The USA was reported to have 85MT and Russia was estimated to have between 100-165MT, although the exact figure has never been made public. The end of the cold war and US-Russian disarmament agreements have resulted fissile material, plutonium and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) becoming redundant.2
A chief goal of plutonium disposition is to make weapons-grade plutonium cores recovered from deactivated nuclear warheads, or pits, inaccessible for nuclear weapons-making purposes. This should render the plutonium as inaccessible as the plutonium found in highly radioactive spent commercial fuel, thereby meeting the "spent fuel standard" defined by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).3 To achieve this, the plutonium is combined with a gamma radiation source such as high-level waste. This process, known as immobilisation, transforms the plutonium into a quality similar to spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive and difficult to handle. Both MOX irradiation and immobilisation were judged by the NAS to be comparable means of achieving the "spent fuel standard".4
Immobilisation
There are two methods of immobilising weapons-grade plutonium and disposing of it as waste: it can be immobilised in a glass matrix (vitrification) or a ceramic matrix (ceramification). The vitrification process involves contaminating plutonium with high-level radioactive liquid waste, which is then mixed with borosilicate glass to create a borosilicate matrix (glass logs). The logs are then sealed in stainless steel cylinders and stored for geological disposal at a nuclear waste repository. The ceramic immobilisation process uses a titanate matrix instead of a borosilicate matrix. Both these options create a highly radioactive environment for plutonium prior to geological disposal and meet the "spent fuel standard".
MOX irradiation
MOX-based plutonium disposition, or MOX irradiation, mixes recovered weapons-grade plutonium with uranium to form a mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel. The MOX fuel is then burnt (irradiated) in nuclear reactors, which can form a "closed fuel cycle" where the plutonium is irradiated, reprocessed and re-used. Irradiating MOX fuel in reactors produces more reactor-grade plutonium than the original MOX fuel because some of the uranium oxide in MOX transforms into plutonium. The burning of weapons-grade plutonium from recovered pits is a method to eliminate part of the fissile material stockpiles in nuclear weapons states. But as a nuclear weapons state, Russia is exempt International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Nonetheless, the MOX irradiation of weapons-grade plutonium is being pursed by the US and Russia-backed by the nuclear industry-under the guise of nuclear disarmament.
Plutonium disposition in Russia
In 1995 the US declared 50MT of military plutonium surplus to its requirements and in 1997 Russia followed. On 1 September 2000, US Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed the Plutonium Disposition Agreement committing each side to dispose of 34MT of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. The agreement is due to take place at an initial rate of 2 MT per year, commencing by December 2007, with the aim transforming excess weapons-grade plutonium into a form unusable for weapons. During the agreement it was decided that the US would burn 25MT of plutonium in MOX fuel and immobilise 9MT in high-level waste as part of its "dual track" disposition policy.
The agreement stipulated that Russia would burn all 34MT of surplus weapons-grade plutonium as MOX fuel. Russia has no commitment to dispose of plutonium through immobilisation with the decision not to immobilise was agreed by US negotiators. In the months of negotiations preceding the final agreement, Russia did offer 1MT of weapons-grade plutonium contained in low-assay sludge for immobilisation, but the offer was rebuffed by the US negotiators, which insisted that only high-assay materials were to be covered by the agreement.5
The agreement forbids either country from separating plutonium from irradiated MOX fuel until that party has disposed of all 34MT of plutonium. The initial cost estimates for the Russian programme were more than $1.7bn. To ensure that plutonium is irreversibly removed from use in nuclear weapons, the agreement specified that both parties would implement monitoring and inspection activities.
According to agreement, the Russian programme includes one industrial-scale site for MOX fuel fabrication, a test-fuel line for fabrication of initial VVER-1000 lead-test MOX assemblies, the modification of a facility for the fabrication of BN-600 pellet fuel and the completion of the Demonstration Conversion Facility.
In 2002, US-Russian officials completed a joint review of Russia's plutonium disposition programme, following a year-long National Security Council review of US non-proliferation programmes in Russia. The joint review reportedly endorsed a new action plan that will engage PWRs and fast reactors in the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium, much like the initial programme. Four VVER-1000 PWRs at the Balakovo plant near Saratov will be used, as well as the BOR-60 experimental fast reactor near Dimitrovgrad and the BN-600 fast reactor near Yekaterinburg. The BN-600 operates on the basis of HEU and plutonium bearing fuels have only been tested. In February 2001, Minatom announced its intention to build a BN-800 fast neutron reactor at Beloyarsk NPP by 2009. The BN-800 is a modification of the BN-600, which could also be used for plutonium disposition.
However, Russian reactors may use a lower MOX core fraction than the US. In order to increase the plutonium disposition rate either the core fraction of Russian reactors will have to be increased or Russian MOX fuel would have to be exported. In other words, increasing Russia's weapons-plutonium disposition rate to 4MT a year would require utilising additional reactor capacity.6 And according to the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), Minatom's reluctance to declassify the isotopic composition of weapons-grade plutonium means that this military plutonium will be blended with about 12% reactor-grade plutonium to conceal its isotopic composition before converting it to MOX fuel.7 The G8 and plutonium disposition
The G8 and non-proliferation
Read Bellona's Position Paper on the G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of WMD Under the 2001 agreement, however, the cost of the Russian plutonium disposition is to be covered by contributions from the G8 countries. At the 1996 Nuclear Safety and Security Summit in Moscow, the G8 initiated the "Programmes for Preventing and Combating Illicit Trafficking in Nuclear Materials". This pledged to support efforts to ensure that all sensitive nuclear material (separated plutonium and HEU) was properly accounted for. The G8 began to identify possible means of international co-operation to address the management and disposal of plutonium not required for military purposes. And since 1996, the G8 have been examining both immobilisation and MOX irradiation as a means of dealing with weapons-grade plutonium disposition.
On 17 December 1999, the European Council established the "European Union Co-operation Programme for Non-proliferation and Disarmament in the Russian Federation". The G8 Plutonium Disposition Programme Group (PDPG) and the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Co-operation Initiative (NDCI) have in the past discussed European financing of Russian MOX. But while most of the G8 countries have embraced the MOX option for plutonium disposition in Russia on a rhetorical level, they have not been as eager to provide funding for the project.
The G8 foreign ministers' joint statement from July 2000 pledged "to co-operate to establish multilateral arrangements necessary for a co-ordinated and integrated programme for the safe management and disposition of weapons-grade plutonium no longer required for defence purposes, and call on other states to join us [the G8] in supporting this effort." Still, the ministers did not make any financial commitments to pay for weapons-grade plutonium disposition.
At the G8 Summit in Canada in June 2002 the G8 nations agreed to fund a weapons-grade plutonium MOX fuel programme in Russia.8 The nations pledged to raise to up $20bn over ten years to support non-proliferation programmes as part of "The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction", including plutonium disposition in Russia.9 In the past, though, the US has been unsuccessful in raising any of the $2bn cost for the Russian MOX programme from the other G8 nations.10 This being the case, the future of G8 non-proliferation assistance to Russia looks uncertain.
Furthermore, in January 2002 the Bush administration decided to indefinitely suspend the development of immobilisation. It has ordered the dismantling of the Plutonium Ceramification Test Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was due to test the process for incorporating weapons-grade plutonium into ceramic pucks. The US will now focus on the MOX fuel track and will now proceed with the MOX irradiation of weapons-grade plutonium in parallel with Russia. In its rejection of the bipartisan US policy that opposed the commercial trade in plutonium and closed fuel cycles, the support for the MOX programme reflects a fundamental change in US non-proliferation policy.
Problems with MOX irradiation
Problems with irradiating MOX fuel in nuclear reactors can be broken down into costs, reactor safety issues and fissile material diversion leading to proliferation.
Costs associated with MOX fabrication
The US Department of Energy estimates that the cost of MOX based plutonium disposition in Russia is around $2bn including the cost of building and operating the MOX fuel plant. The cost of disposing of Russia's surplus weapons-grade plutonium could be reduced to $1bn if one or more Western European countries that already use MOX fuel were willing to purchase Russian MOX fuel.11
According to Frank von Hippel, roughly $700m would be required for research and development and design and construction facilities to convert the plutonium from metal oxide and produce the MOX fuel. This figure includes transportation and storage infrastructure. An additional $1bn would be needed to operate the MOX plant. At 4% plutonium content, 34 MT of plutonium would be turned into MOX fuel with 850MT of heavy-metal content. This plutonium would displace lightly-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel worth roughly $1,000 a kilogramme.12 What is more, MOX fuel is 3-5 times more expensive to produce than LEU fuel.
A joint US-Russian government study concluded that a MOX fuel plutonium disposition programme in Russia would cost up to $2.5bn, though this does not include the cost of upgrading Russian VVER-1000 reactors to Western safety standards. Doubts over the availability of funding have led Minatom to consider the leasing of MOX fuel to reactors outside of Russia. Minatom has made proposals to lease to Western Europe and East Asia MOX fuel produced in Russia from warhead plutonium.13 The MOX fuel would remain the property of Russia. Once used, the SNF would be shipped back to Russia for reprocessing or disposal. This would delay the shut down of Western reactors, which would receive subsidised fuel and be able to send SNF to Russia for reprocessing.
MOX fuel and reactor safety
The use of MOX fuel carries risks that apply to both reactor-grade and weapons-grade MOX fuel and can jeopardise reactor safety. What is more, there is no experience anywhere with the use of weapons-grade plutonium in MOX fuel. The substitution of MOX fuel for lightly-enriched uranium (LEU) in LWRs raises safety risks that have not been adequately assessed. Concerns with operating breeder reactors with MOX fuel exist. Breeder reactors are cooled with sodium, which becomes volatile when it comes into contact with water and air. BN-600 has already had a sodium accident, despite having Russia's best nuclear safety record.
The likelihood of severe accidents would increase with using MOX fuel. The introduction of MOX fuel into LWRs reduces the effectiveness of the materials used to absorb neutrons in the core, such as control rods and the boron dissolved in the coolant. This makes it more difficult to control the nuclear reactions in the core and reduces the margin available to safely shut down the reactor. The "delayed neutron fraction", a constraint determining the speed at which the power level of the reactor responds to changes in conditions, is small when MOX fuel is used in LWRs. This means that the operator has less control over reactor transients, as well having less time to respond to them.
Using MOX fuel in a reactor core would increase the affects of a severe accident involving containment failure or containment bypass because MOX cores have higher concentrations of actinides, including isotopes of americium, curium and plutonium. Most of these are alpha-particle emitters with radio-toxicities. In the event of a severe, Chernobyl-type accident with containment failure or bypass at a PWR with a 40% weapons-grade MOX core, the number of latent cancer fatalities would be around 25% higher than for a PWR with an all LEU core. The NCI finds that the use of MOX fuel could have serious negative effects on other aspects of PWR operation such as overcooling transients and pressurised thermal shock, which is of concern to VVER-1000s.14 It would cost $120m-$180m to upgrade each VVER-1000 reactor to meet Western safety standards.
MOX diversion and proliferation risks
Bellona believes that a MOX fuel programme in Russia would increase plutonium proliferation risks. One of the main problems with using MOX fuel on a commercial scale is that it will result in the increased transport of plutonium and fresh MOX fuel. Both the plutonium and fresh MOX fuel would be a very tempting target for terrorist groups or "rogue states" that would like to develop nuclear weapons. Even the IAEA classifies MOX fuel as a "direct-use weapons material" meaning that the plutonium could be extracted and used for weapons purposes.
MOX fuel disposition would provide Russia with a technical infrastructure to develop a plutonium-based "closed fuel cycle" for its civilian nuclear programme. Minatom has also retained the option to reprocess its irradiated weapons-grade plutonium MOX fuel after the end of the disposition programme. It is possible that weapons-useable plutonium could be separated by reprocessing and re-used in the fabrication of a nuclear weapon. Moreover, large-scale MOX fuel production and transportation also carries with it the threat that fresh MOX fuel could be stolen and diverted to other uses. After all, warhead-derived MOX fuel is merely plutonium and uranium blended and held in ceramic form. It can be dissolved and the two elements separated out, one of which is heavier than the other.15 In fact, reprocessing requires the SNF to be dissolved in nitric acid whereby uranium, plutonium and radioactive waste are separated. This process produces uranium powder and plutonium powder, where the later is used for MOX fuel.
A report by Frank Barnaby for the Oxford Research Group concluded that it would be relatively easy for a terrorist group to make a nuclear device based on plutonium from fresh MOX fuel.16 Dr Barnaby, a physicist who worked for Britain's nuclear weapons laboratory at Aldermaston, outlined three methods of chemically separating the plutonium dioxide from the uranium dioxide in MOX fuel. What is more, the US Department of Energy came to the conclusion that: "fresh MOX fuel remains a material in the most sensitive category because plutonium suitable for use in [nuclear] weapons could be separated from it relative easy". Moreover, an article by Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Center, who served in the Department of Defense under Bush Senior, suggested the US government is risking the spread of plutonium around the world by supporting the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium as MOX fuel.17
Another problem associated with MOX fuel is connected with breeder reactors. While the BN-600 reactor would be operated without a "blanket" so it will not breed more plutonium, it could in fact be operated in breeder mode. More worrying is Minatom's pursuit of a new, larger fast breeder reactor, the BN-800. This could lead to a plutonium-based "closed fuel cycle" and increase separated plutonium stockpiles. By subsidising Minatom's plutonium economy, the G8 might inadvertently contribute to proliferation risks instead of reducing them.
Conclusion
Bellona believes the best solution is to convert weapons-grade plutonium into the "spent fuel standard" by means of immobilisation. Immobilisation requires far less resources than MOX irradiation (industrial infrastructure, fuel fabrication, handling, shipment). Immobilisation has the advantage of keeping the plutonium under state control at designated sites. This makes physical protection much easier. Immobilisation also makes the recovery of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium difficult. In the post-11 September 2001 security environment, immobilisation would remove weapons-useable material from circulation.
Bellona believes that preventing nuclear proliferation is one of the most urgent tasks facing the world and the use of MOX fuel would add to proliferation risks. Surplus weapons-grade plutonium should be converted into the "spent fuel standard" by immobilising the plutonium with high-level waste, which should be disposed of in a secure geological repository.
Notes
1. Frank von Hippel, 'Recommendations for Preventing Nuclear Terrorism', Journal of the Federation of American Scientists, Public Interest Report, Vol.54, No.6, Nov/Dec 2001. (http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n6/prevent.htm).
2. Prof. J. E. Harris, 'Disarmament and disposal of fissile material', Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1998, Vol.23, No.3.
3. Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), National Academy of Sciences, 'Managing and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium: Reactor-Related Options', National Academy Press, 1995.
4. See the Nuclear Control Institute: Plutonium Disposal Section (www.nci.org).
5. Edwin S Lyman, 'The Future of Immobilisation under the US-Russian Plutonium Disposition Agreement', NCI, July 2001, (http://www.nci.org/new/el-inmm2001.htm).
6. NCI. Ibid, July 2001.
7. Edwin S Lyman, 'The Safety Risks of Using Mixed-Oxide Fuel in VVER-1000 Reactors: An Overview', NCI, May 2000, (http://www.nci.org/e-el-russiamox.htm).
8. Documents from the G8 Summit are available at: (http://www.g8.gc.ca/event_site/medianews-e.asp).
9. See Bellona's Position Paper on 'The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction'.
10. NCI. 'G8 Nations to Waste Billions on Dangerous Russian Plutonium Fuel', 27 June 2002, (http://www.nci.org/02NCI/06/pr6272002.htm).
11. FAS. Ibid.
12. FAS. Ibid.
13. Greenpeace Briefing, 'The Disarmament Myth of Plutonium Fuel Production', March 2001.
14. Edwin S Lyman, 'Public Health Consequences of Substituting Mixed-Oxide Fuel for Uranium in Light-Water Reactors, NCI, January 1999, (http://www.nci.org/k-m/moxsum.htm).
15. CND, UK, Briefing Paper, Mixed Oxide Fuel: some answers to some questions (http://www.cnduk.org/briefing/mox.htm).
16. Stuart Miller, the Guardian, 'Scientists says BNFL plant is terrorist risk', 31 May 2001, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,499014,00.html).
17. The Non-proliferation Policy Education Center (http://www.npec-web.org).
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Energizing Aging Nuclear Plants
BusinessWeek Online
Tue Nov 12, 2002
by Reuters
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/bw/20021112/bs_bw/nf200211125445
In March, 1979, leaking coolant at Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 2 in Pennsylvania brought the nuclear power plant within 30 minutes of a catastrophic meltdown. The accident was contained, and only small amounts of radioactive gas escaped from the damaged reactor.
The near disaster marked the beginning of the end of America's romance with atomic fission. Yet it didn't curtail the growth of nuclear power. Indeed, ever since Three Mile Island, efficiency improvements have helped nuclear-power generation to grow steadily, even as the number of functioning commercial reactors in the U.S. has fallen to 103, from a peak of 109.
And over the next decade, nuclear output will grow an additional 10%, says Tom Christopher, CEO of Framatome ANP Inc., the U.S. unit of Paris-based Framatome ANP, the world's largest provider of nuclear-engineering services. The result will be an additional 10,000 megawatts' worth of electrical capacity -- the equivalent of 8 to 10 big nuclear facilities -- without requiring the construction of a single new plant.
The surge in capacity growth, Christopher says, is a result of the ongoing relicensing of the nation's commercial nuclear fleet. Today's power plants were commissioned to split atoms for not more than four decades. Starting in the late 1990s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC] began to extend that term to 60 years on a plant-by-plant basis.
The extensions have opened the door to major capital investment, much of which is funneled through Framatome. Plants pay the engineering company to upgrade their key systems, replacing clunky, '70s generators, mechanical switches, and manual gauges with high-efficiency motors and digital controls. The upshot is not just increased output but improved safety, says Christopher, a 29-year veteran of the nuclear-power business.
BusinessWeek Industries Editor Adam Aston met with Christopher to learn more about the surprising growth of the nation's nuclear capacity. Edited excerpts from their conversation follow:
Q: Why have the operating extensions made such a difference to the industry?
A: Under NRC guidelines, the operators can submit an application for a renewed license within three years of a facility's 30th year. The renewal adds 20 years to the plant's original 40-year license. The life extensions open the door to capital improvements and make it possible for operators to take advantage of the lessons learned over the past 30 years, and to retool and upgrade for another 30.
Q: What kinds of changes are taking place?
A: Every year, our ability to upgrade a plant improves. Productivity gains have been so high over the past 20 years that our costs to upgrade a plant have fallen by half. For instance, when a nuke [plant] refuels, which is every 15 to 18 months, it's required to do an intensive inspection. In the past, that was done by people -- even in high-risk radioactive areas. Now in practically every instance, we have a robot do the work. These machines can even do repairs -- they can weld and grind. So now, labor counts for only about 30% of the value we provide in an upgrade.
Q: What's the scale of these upgrades?
A: It depends on what the operator is willing to spend. And that, in turn, depends on the average price of power over the plant's remaining years. If you assume a conservative price -- say $2.50 to $3.50 per megawatt hour -- a typical facility could justify $100 million to $200 million in spending per reactor and still recover that over 20 years.
These refits can be big operations. Picture a Navy ship that comes into a shipyard for a refitting, with hundreds of workers fixing and upgrading the ship. We do the reverse. We take the shipyard to the ship. During a fueling outage, it's not unusual for a plant to have 900 contractors on site.
Q: How do you decide what to replace?
A: The majority of U.S. plants were designed in the late '60s and '70s. In many ways, they're crude by today's standards. But they were designed very conservatively, with lots of redundancy, so there are parts that don't need to be changed. Also, it varies with the unit. If the plant is on a lake and cannot increase its discharge of cooling water, then upgrading its generating capacity isn't an option. If a plant is able to boost its output, then we can replace the steam turbines and generators.
A lot of little things can also increase efficiency -- and power output. Thousands of detectors in a nuclear plant measure things like temperature and pressure. Each is connected to an electromechanical control panel. You can replace those analog detectors and gauges with microprocessors that will do more. And you can integrate the controls into a simpler system that requires fewer engineers to monitor.
We can also reduce the house load power -- the electricity the plant needs to operate. The cuts can be significant -- say, 40 to 60 megawatts. It's not unusual for a plant to have 3,000 motor-operated valves. We can replace these valves and pumps with more efficient variable-speed motors, cutting the house load by 10%. And all that [saved] power can be sold to market.
Q: What's the net effect of these upgrades?
A: You will hear industry people say we've begun a period of pseudo-construction of new nuclear plants in the U.S. On average, we'll see a 10% capacity increase from the nuclear plants here, so you're talking 10,000 megawatts in the next 10 years.
Q: What sorts of efficiency gains have we already seen?
A: Think of it in terms of capacity factor, which is the industry's actual production as a percentage of its potential maximum. The average for the U.S.'s 103 nuclear plants is 91%, the highest such rating in the world. It means that a typical plant is down only 9% of the year, or 33 to 35 days. That's remarkable, especially since, in the early '70s, that measure was 60% or so -- around eighth place compared with other national nuclear fleets. The improvement began before the current round of relicensing. It's due partly to the efforts of the industry associations to share operating practices.
Q: Yet U.S. investment in new nuclear plants and technology has all but stalled. So where are these updated systems coming from?
A: The U.S. industry designed and constructed its plants in the '60s and '70s. At the time, the Germans and particularly the French took the U.S. plant designs, modified them, and then began the creation of this large French fleet. But they built their units using mostly late '70s and early '80s technology.
Since then, France has religiously been going back and backfitting those plants. So when Framatome talks to a U.S. customer today, we say, "Before you rebuild, we will be your window on the world." We can take U.S. customers to a European plant that started with American designs and then optimized them.
Q: Will the U.S. build any new nuclear plants?
A: Given the volatility of power prices, nuclear operators look at the near term -- say, three to five years. In that time, is anybody going to need a big base-load nuclear plant [i.e., a large-capacity facility that is run continuously]? Not likely. In 5 to 10 years, there may be a window. If so, the decision will probably be driven by other issues, such as environmental c onstraints. You might see the value of nuclear facilities rise if the world moves toward some sort of carbon tax.
Since nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, it could be used to offset dirtier sources. It's impossible to predict what sort of energy technology will be available then. Perhaps we'll have a hydrogen economy, where nuclear power will be used to split water into hydrogen gas. Q: What are your thoughts on radioactive waste?
A: It's important to put the problem in context. I've seen data that say if you take all of the spent fuel rods generated in nuclear plants in the U.S. and stack them up, you'll have a pile that's 10 yards high and fits inside a football field. That's it.
Now, the issue is how do we deal with it. To us, Yucca Mountain [a waste-storage facility in Nevada] is the ideal solution. And frankly, the tax that's currently in the electricity rates -- two-tenths of a cent per kilowatt hour -- would be more than enough to build and operate Yucca Mountain.
Q: In 1998, Germany voted to phase out its existing nuclear plants. Does this mean few nukes will be built abroad?
A: Some countries are backing away from nuclear energy. But the news is more positive than negative. Finland just approved a public referendum to build a new nuclear plant. And in the former Soviet Union, they are determined to go back and complete a number of their plants that were never finished.
Framatome is completing work on two plants in China. South Korea (news - web sites), of course, also continues to build nuclear plants. And Japan has a robust construction program -- maybe six or eight more plants are planned over the next decade.
-------- us politics
Deadlock Broken on Homeland Security Bill
November 12, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Lame-Duck.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House and congressional leaders agreed Tuesday to begin pushing a bill to create a Homeland Security Department through Congress this week, moving toward a major legislative victory for President Bush.
Congressional officials said they expected the Republican-run House to approve the bill on Wednesday while the Democratic-controlled Senate will begin debating it the same day. Possible procedural delays by Senate opponents could delay final passage there until next week.
Passage would give the president one of the key parts of his plan for responding to last year's terrorist attacks. It would also spotlight the political muscle he gained from last week's Election Day wins by congressional Republicans.
``I believe we can get this done. I believe Congress can show the country that they can finish their work on a high note of achievement,'' the president said in a day of prodding lawmakers to complete the bill.
Passage also would represent a reversal by Senate Democrats who before the election opposed the bill because they said it would undermine civil service protections at the new agency.
According to a description circulating on Capitol Hill, the measure would allow airline pilots to be armed in cockpits, another proposal that became popular after the Sept. 11 attacks. Initial versions of that plan have already passed the House and Senate, but the two chambers have not finished a compromise bill.
The bill would also allow a one-year delay in the Jan. 1 deadline for airports to screen all luggage for explosives, and let the new agency do business with American companies that move offshore to avoid U.S. taxes if there are national or economic security reasons to do so, congressional aides said.
The bill would drop Senate language that would have established an independent commission to investigate why U.S. authorities failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, congressional aides said.
The overall legislation would take a small step to address complaints by Senate Democrats that the new agency's 170,000 workers would lack sufficient job protection.
It would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees' union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted -- flexibility that administration officials have argued they will need.
That language drew opposition from unions representing federal workers. Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said that under the bill, civil service protections ``will not exist in the new department.''
Ranit Schmelzer, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Daschle believes the measure's worker protections do not go far enough, but he would bring the bill to the Senate floor because the new department is needed. She said the bill appears to have enough votes to pass the Senate.
``There may be differences of opinion on different components of the legislation but there is no disagreement that we need to complete our work on this bill promptly,'' Daschle said in a written statement.
Meanwhile, House and Senate leaders were ready to postpone completion of overdue spending bills until at least January.
Only two of the 13 spending bills financing agencies in the current federal budget year have become law. Leaders were planning to push legislation through Congress keeping agencies open until Jan. 11 in hopes that the House and Senate Appropriations committees could complete work on a final, huge spending package by then.
Congressional leaders are hoping to limit their postelection session -- which started Tuesday -- to a week or less. As it began, independent Sen. Dean Barkley of Minnesota was sworn in to replace the late Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., leaving Democrats running the Senate for now by 50-49-1.
The breakthrough on homeland security came after congressional GOP leaders met at the White House with Bush, who has made the bill's passage the top priority of the session.
Bush opened the meeting by telling the lawmakers they should ``see the election for what it was'' and get working quickly on homeland security and terrorism insurance, said a senior White House official who was present.
It remained in doubt whether the separate legislation creating federally backed insurance against terrorists' acts could be approved during the lame-duck session.
But the homeland security bill seemed destined for rapid-fire passage by the House. Senate officials said there appeared to be enough votes there for approval as well, though it was uncertain whether delaying tactics would slow that work.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has complained that creation of what would be one of the government's biggest and most important agencies should be phased in, rather than created in a single stroke. Aides to Byrd said it was uncertain whether he would try to slow passage of the legislation.
The measure would combine about two dozen federal agencies into a new department. They would include the Coast Guard, Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and much of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
-------- MILITARY
-------- balkans
After the War - [Bosnia]
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41185-2002Nov11?language=printer
WHAT DOES it take for outside powers to rebuild a war-ruined and badly divided country? Bosnia offers a state-of-the-art -- and sobering -- example. Seven years after a U.S. intervention helped end its civil war and Western troops poured in to keep the peace, the Balkan nation of 3.5 million remains far from able to live on its own. The good news is that the horrific fighting that killed a quarter of a million people in less than four years has not been renewed, that several hundred thousand refugees and victims of ethnic cleansing have returned to their homes, and that peaceful and free democratic elections were held this month for all levels of government -- the sixth elections to be staged in as many years. But the peace continues to depend on 12,000 foreign troops, including 2,000 Americans; the functioning of government relies in no small part on the interventions of a Western "high representative" with near-dictatorial powers; and, most discouraging of all, the victors in the recent elections were the same nationalist parties that tore the country apart a decade ago. Bosnia is not now a failed state, but it is a center for the trafficking of women and narcotics, a hide-out for war criminals and a steady drain on Western aid and defense budgets. It's not likely to collapse soon, but neither will foreign troops and administrators likely be able to safely pull out for many years to come.
The Bush administration has from its onset disparaged the nation-building projects supported by President Clinton in Bosnia and elsewhere in the Balkans, and it has occasionally threatened to withdraw American troops. In Afghanistan the administration has deliberately pursued a different model, eschewing international administration or a large foreign peacekeeping force and trying to invest a skeletal Afghan government with authority. But that strategy has left Afghanistan at the mercy of brutal warlords and at perpetual risk of chaos. So now White House officials, looking forward to Iraq, are floating still another model: direct administration by the U.S. military. The idea is a regime that would last for a period of several years while a civilian democracy was constructed.
The Bosnia experience offers some support for this more muscular postwar scheme. Paddy Ashdown, the veteran British politician and statesman who is now the high representative in Bosnia, has pointed out that the repeated elections in that country have sometimes impeded rather than advanced the progress of desperately needed economic and political reforms. Most of the important changes in the country, from guarantees for returning refugees to the purging of criminals from government, have happened on the orders of Mr. Ashdown and his predecessors. And further progress is unlikely unless Western governments tightly condition continued aid on concrete steps by the Bosnians. In short, while democracy should be a central aim of postwar nation-building, it cannot necessarily be the starting point -- and even if it is, a strong outside authority is essential.
Yet Bosnia also shows that it is far easier to take over a devastated state than to let go of it. The Clinton administration originally promised, with calculated insincerity, that U.S. troops would be needed only a year. They have now been there nearly seven, and Mr. Ashdown and other international experts believe they will be needed for several more years at least. Iraq offers a far larger and more complicated challenge of nation-building; it can only be expected that any postwar mission will be even harder and take still longer. The Bush administration needs to be honest, both with itself and with the public, about the scale of the coming commitment -- and scrupulous about planning for the long term. Just as it unwillingly inherited the Clinton administration's scheme for Bosnia, its successors will surely be burdened with implementing the decisions made in the coming months about Iraq.
-------- biological weapons
Nations seek reduced germ-warfare threat
By Alexander G. Higgins
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 12, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-89161928.htm
GENEVA - A 146-nation conference looked for new ways yesterday to reduce the threat of germ warfare, meeting for the first time since the United States quashed a plan to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
The group agreed to consider a proposal on holding annual meetings to discuss what nations could do on their own or together short of changing the treaty. But they acknowledged the U.S. opposition would keep the document from setting out strong enforcement measures.
"I am aware that the proposal is not likely to fully satisfy many or even any delegation," Tibor Toth, chairman of the conference, said of the proposal. "This is a rescue operation."
It was the first time the group had met since last December, when talks were suspended for a year when the United States backed away from a draft proposal on enforcing the global ban.
"Everyone in the conference is walking on eggshells," said Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood.
He said Mr. Toth's proposal was carefully worded to avoid offending any country.
Officials said it was crucial to keep world attention focused on the threat of biological weapons. Discussion topics under the proposal would include improving national control of microorganisms and toxins, enhancing international response to suspicious outbreaks of disease and adopting a code of conduct for scientists.
"The very worst thing that can happen is that this thing is not discussed at an international level," said Patricia Lewis, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research.
The Biological Weapons Convention has never had serious enforcement measures because the threat was not believed to be high when it was drafted. But that changed with rising concerns that Iraq would use biological weapons during the Persian Gulf war.
At the end of meetings last year, the United States shocked other nations by saying it would not support stringent enforcement, including inspections, because it did not want to give away defense or commercial secrets.
The United States said inspections probably would not be able to detect violations anyway.
Washington invests more than $1 billion a year on its program to defend against biological weapons. Some experts say Iraq is not the only country suspected of having a germ-warfare program. The United States says a dozen or more nations have such programs.
The United States says they include Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and North Korea.
The Federation of American Scientists and seven other organizations announced yesterday they were creating a global monitoring network to watch for violations of the treaty because of the treaty countries' failure to adopt an enforcement system.
The project aims to follow in the footsteps of other efforts against land mines and small arms.
"For the first time, compliance with the bioweapons ban will be monitored comprehensively and objectively," a statement said.
----
Attack on Iraq could lead Saddam to unleash his chemical and biological weapons, warns Jane's report
12 November 2002
Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jtsm/jtsm021112_1_n.shtml
If the US and its allies wage war on Iraq, Saddam Hussein could order chemical and biological weapons to be unleashed - potentially directly into Western or allied cities. "Additionally, an invasion might actually increase the likelihood of terrorist access to and acquisition of Iraq's chemical and biological assets," argues a new report in the authoritative Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor magazine.
"During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam authorised commanders of his missile forces to launch biological and chemical weapons at Israel if US-led coalition forces had marched on Baghdad," states Andrew Oppenheimer, author of the report. "Presumably, if the US were to invade Iraq to enforce a change of regime, Saddam could give such apocalyptic orders again."
Although Saddam only has short-range missile delivery systems, the West should not dismiss the other ways that these weapons can be deployed. The report argues that Saddam could well decide to disseminate these weapons to anti-West terror groups such as Al-Qaeda or alternatively have his own followers deploy them.
"Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting an attack using weapons of mass destruction against the US would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him," states the report. "While he is not likely to share his weapons with anyone as long as he remains in power, it is less apparent, however, whether this limit to proliferation would still apply under conditions in which his regime was collapsing and his power was under threat."
Smallpox is increasingly regarded as a threat and the possibility that Iraq has turned it into a weapon is causing Western analysts much concern. Iraqi specialists are known to have been working with the camelpox virus, which may be used for the development of such a smallpox virus. Iraq doesn't have the technology to deploy smallpox in a missile but it is a lethal weapon when dispersed into crowds, for example.
The report describes a worst-case scenario in which warehouses around the US potentially already have such weapons deployed within them, ready for dispersal in aerosol form via smokestacks or into water supplies. A concerted attack on Iraq could result in Saddam revealing the location of one such site to show that there is a real threat.
The West and its allies should be thankful that Iraq lacks any strong motivation for a covert attack. "This is because there would be no glory or gain for Iraq, and if Iraq was identified or suspected as the source of the attack, there would undoubtedly be an overwhelming and devastating counterattack that would eliminate the Iraqi leadership," states the report. However, the allies should be very mindful of Saddam's political and psychological predisposition to attack, should the Iraq situation deteriorate.
Further reassurance might be gained from the lack of mass casualties when potentially apocalyptic weaponry is deployed in real-life situations. If they are to achieve mass casualties, chemical weapons and especially biological weapons require resources and that are usually lacking in those who wish to deploy them--including many Iraqi agents. When the Aum Shinrikyo cult bombed the Tokyo underground with Sarin in 1995, less deaths were caused than by the conventional explosion that rocked the USS Cole in 2000. "These facts support the argument that weapons of choice for terrorists are, for now, truck bombs and other conventional tools that are markedly less technically demanding, less resource-intensive, and less dangerous for the perpetrators - suicide bombers aside," argues the report.
-------- britain
Blair says terror warnings are coming 'almost daily'
By Andrew Grice Political Editor
12 November 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=351319
Tony Blair prepared the British public last night for the "pain" of terrorist attacks by al-Qa'ida but warned that the world would only defeat terrorism by political as well as security co-operation.
The Prime Minister called for the Bush administration to be fully engaged in the wider problems facing the world as well as focusing on Iraq and terrorism. Despite an imminent election in Israel, Mr Blair renewed his call for an urgent initiative to kickstart the Middle East peace process. In his annual foreign affairs speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in the City of London, Mr Blair gave a gloomy assessment of what he called the warnings of possible terrorist acts coming across his desk almost every day.
It emerged this morning that Britain's ferry ports have been put on their highest state of alert for at least two years, because of fears of terrorists targeting ships.
BBC Radio 4's Today programme claimed that the alert was issued last week after French and Dutch security services warned that terrorists would attempt to board a North Sea ferry in a truck loaded with explosives.
The intelligence is believed to have originated from the FBI, the programme said.
Acknowledging that al- Qa'ida cells were operating in Britain, the Prime Minister said that when this was known, the security services were monitoring, disrupting, imprisoning or expelling the terrorists.
While calling for the public to be vigilant, he highlighted the "dilemma" facing the Government over when to issue specific warnings. Some MPs believe he issued the general warning so the Government could say people had been warned if an attack took place.
Stressing that a "balance" had to be struck, Mr Blair said he would have shut roads, railways, airports, stations, shopping centres, factories and military installations on many occasions if he had acted on every piece of raw intelligence.
"The purpose of terrorism is not just to kill and maim," he said. "It is to scare people, disrupt their normal lives, produce chaos and disorder, distort proper and sensible decision-making. The dilemma is reconciling warning people without alarming them; taking preventive measures without destroying normal life."
The Prime Minister warned: "This is a new type of war, fought in a different way by different means. But as with all wars, it will test not just our ability to fight, but our character, our resilience and our belief in our own way of life."
Mr Blair said the international community needed to be unified in its political response. Coalitions of force were stronger when buttressed by a coalition of common ideas.
He added: "The world needs a broader agenda than simply terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And we need full US engagement and leadership of all of it. President Bush recognises that."
The danger, he argued, was not just terrorism or WMD, but polarised opinion in how they were dealt with: Europe dividing off from America; the Arab world versus the West; Muslim versus Christian. "We will not defeat terrorism only by security measures," he said.
The Prime Minister accepted a substantial part of the world was "deeply inimical to all we stand for". Although the view was profoundly mistaken, it menaced the unity needed.
So there was a need to "reach out" to the Arab and Muslim world. "We need to understand the passion and anger the state of the Middle East peace process arouses," he said. "The answer is not to apportion blame. The answer is to move the process forward: on security, on political reform, on the only viable solution the whole world now supports - an Israeli state, recognised by all, and a viable Palestinian state. And to do it quickly. Until this happens, this issue hangs like a dark shadow over our world, chilling our relations with each other, poisoning the understanding of our motives, providing the cover under which the fanatics build strength."
In the meantime, ministers are considering plans to warn the general public about specific terrorist dangers. One option is a poster campaign at railway stations on what to do in the event of a gas attack.
-------- canada
Pull troops from overseas, Canadian senators say
Tuesday, November 12
By ALLISON DUNFIELD
Globe and Mail Update With a report from Canadian Press
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021112/wsena1112_3/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
A Senate committee on national security and defence released a bleak report Tuesday on the financial crisis facing Canada's military saying that in order to survive, troops should be pulled from overseas deployment to stave off further fatigue.
"Money alone will not solve the problem. We became convinced over the summer that in addition to significant infusion of cash that the military needed a pause from overseas deployments," Senator Colin Kenny, chairman of the committee, said at an Ottawa press conference.
"Normally troops go out for six months at a time. We're suggesting that as those tours come to an end, no more troops be sent overseas and that they remain here in Canada for 24 months - two years - in order to regroup and try to pull the structure back into shape."
Mr. Kenny later told globeandmail.com that the military is headed for a critical personnel shortage if it does not address training issues.
The Senate report says that a withdrawal from international duty for 24 months makes more sense than allowing the Canadian Forces to continue to fall apart.
"What we're saying is, you've got to give both the money and the time to get people trained up," Mr. Kenny said.
Mr. Kenny said the request comes from speaking to military members from 15 bases across the country.
Troop pullback could begin in six months.
But Leon Benoit, the Opposition defence critic, told globeandmail.com that Canada can't renege on its international commitments overseas.
"It would be naive and irresponsible," he said. "You can't simply withdraw our troops from all overseas operations for two years ... it's unacceptable. When you make a commitment to allies you keep it."
Titled "For an Extra $130 bucks ... Update on Canada's Military Crisis - A View From the Bottom Up," the report also recommends an immediate funding injection of $4-billion - the same amount it recommended in an earlier report in February.
"That's the minimum, and the full increase is required immediately," Senator Joseph Day said. He added: "There hasn't been much of a reaction or a change since that February report so we've continued studying the problem."
Mr. Kenny said that amounts to an extra $130 per person in Canada. Currently, per-capita spending on military amounts to about $435.
When asked whether he feels the government will be responsive to the Senate report, Mr. Kenny told globeandmail.com that "this is a dilemma for the government, there's no question about it.
"We don't see it as an either/or thing, first of all. Secondly, if you don't have a secure country, all the other important things that you want to have fall by the wayside. It's fundamental to Canadians that they have a secure country first."
He called it an "insurance policy." Canadians clearly spend more to insure their cars and homes, he said.
In a speech last week, Defence Minister John McCallum said he will cut administrative fat and outdated weapon systems out of the Canadian Forces, and acknowledged that he is looking for money for more troops and modern equipment.
Mr. McCallum is in Britain preparing for next week's NATO meetings in Prague, spokesman Shane Diaczuk told globeandmail.com.
Mr. Diaczuk said the report will be looked at by the Defence Department in the "overall sense of developing a sustainability for the Canadian Forces. This report, like other reports that have come out recently, will be well looked at."
Mr. Kenny said he is satisfied with the work of the Defence Minister, who was appointed in January.
"He's doing a fine job. I think he's drawn attention to the problem, and I think he's endeavouring the best he can to get more funding."
Tuesday's report was based in part on interviews with officers and enlisted personnel at 15 military bases across Canada.
It is the first in a series of interim reports to be issued under its current mandate to "review matters relating to national defence and security generally, including veterans affairs."
The committee's last report also talked about the need for an increase in troops - from the current 52,000 to 75,000.
The report also talks about a crisis in personnel on bases as well as qualified technical instructors to perform training, insufficient funding for operations, maintenance and infrastructure, and an equipment crisis, which the report refers to as "Canada's Antiques Roadshow."
"We had technicians say 'look, I get halfway through a job and I need a part,' and we don't have any parts. And that happens day after day."
Mr. Benoit said the committee is right in pointing out that Canada is not properly fulfilling its commitment overseas because the military is overstretched, because of outdated equipment and because of a lack of personnel.
The report may have some potency among the public as it was released one day after a poignant Remembrance Day in which Canadians mourned the loss of four soldiers in an April friendly fire incident.
-------- chemical weapons
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Iraq Said to Try to Buy Antidote Against Nerve Gas
November 12, 2002
New York Times
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/international/middleeast/12NERV.html
Iraq has ordered large quantities of a drug that can be used to counter the effects of nerve gas, mainly from suppliers in Turkey, which is being pressed to stop the sales, according to senior Bush administration officials.
The officials said the orders far outstripped the amount Iraq could conceivably need for normal hospital use, and they said Turkey had indicated in talks with the State Department that it was willing to review the matter.
"If the Iraqis were going to use nerve agents," an official said, "they would want to take steps to protect their own soldiers, if not their population. This is something that U.S. intelligence is mindful of and very concerned about."
Iraq has ordered, mainly from a Turkish company, a million doses of the drug, atropine, and the 7-inch autoinjectors that inject it into a person's leg, the officials said.
It is not clear how much, if any, of the drug has actually been delivered.
Atropine is highly effective at blocking such nerve agents as sarin and VX, both of which Iraq has acknowledged having made and stockpiled. Iraq claims to have destroyed those stockpiles, but American intelligence agencies doubt it has done so.
One official said Iraq had also placed orders for another antidote for chemical weapons, obidoxime chloride.
Officials said hospitals and clinics around the world commonly stocked atropine to resuscitate patients who have had heart attacks. As a result, atropine was not included on a list of thousands of "dual use" items that the United Nations Security Council members drafted in May that inspectors must review more carefully before they can be sold to Iraq.
The bulk purchases of autoinjectors and atropine, however, have raised concerns among chemical weapons experts, intelligence analysts and senior White House officials, who argue that atropine to counter heart attacks is normally given intravenously and in much smaller doses. Obidoxime chloride is not used at all for that purpose, one expert said.
All this, the officials and experts say, illustrates how hard it is to control dual-use products - those that have civilian purposes, yet also can strengthen a country's military. That is true even when the seller is an ally, they said.
The United States renounced the use of nerve agents and other chemical weapons in the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, pledging not to use such weapons in war, and saying it no longer has them in its arsenal. But the American armed forces do carry atropine and autoinjectors in first-aid kits in case of attack.
Iraq has not ratified the treaty that bans the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It used chemical weapons during its war against Iran in the 1980's and to suppress dissent among its own Kurdish citizens in the north.
White House officials have recently considered the Iraqi orders at meetings, and the State Department has tried to stop the sales through discussions with Turkey in the last two months. One official said Turkey, a NATO member and staunch American ally, had agreed to review the orders and consider the request.
In a telephone interview, Turkey's ambassador to Washington, O. Faruk Logoglu, said he was unaware of such discussions. But he added that they might well have been conducted by American Embassy and Turkish officials in Ankara, the Turkish capital, bypassing his embassy.
Administration officials declined to identify the Turkish supplier, but one official characterized the company as an important regional producer of bio-defense products and equipment with international customers.
"Atropine and autoinjectors are common products," an official said.
Administration officials said the contracts demonstrated deficiencies in the system put in place last summer to simplify the shipment of aid to Iraqi civilians under the United Nations "oil for food" program. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell extolled the new system as "smart sanctions."
Under the previous system, shipments of food, medicine and other goods that Iraq said were for civilians were routinely delayed for months while Security Council members and United Nations weapons inspectors pored over contracts to determine whether the sales could strengthen Iraq's military.
The new system adopted in May allows for the sale and shipment of most goods without extensive review unless they are on the list put together by the United States, Russia, France, and other Security Council members. It took almost a year for negotiators to develop the list, because the United States wanted it to be as comprehensive as possible, while Russia and France, both large exporters to Iraq, lobbied for a shorter list.
The United States has yet to conduct a formal assessment of the new system, now just a few months' old. But officials said in interviews that they feared that Iraq was already exploiting omissions from the list.
American officials said it was becoming obvious that some items that should have been included, like the atropine and autoinjectors, had been omitted.
Iraq's military capabilities, "though far less impressive than they were before the 1991 gulf war, are becoming better through such purchases every day," a senior administration official said. "And we're seeing that the traditional mechanisms for controlling the transfer of such items - export controls, border patrols, and other sanctions - are still porous."
Technically, the list can be reopened for changes every six months, but administration officials said the State Department was reluctant to do so. "If we try to add items to that list," an official said, "Russia and France will demand that other items be subtracted from it, and we'll be back again to square one."
But the Pentagon is more willing to seek a change, officials said. If any Security Council member does want to change the list, the deadline to do so is late this month.
Dave Franz, a former director of the Army's bio-defense lab at Fort Detrick, Md., and Frederick R. Sidell, a chemical agents expert who worked at the Army Medical Institute of Chemical Defense, agreed that Iraq's orders raised concern because there were virtually no peaceful uses for that much atropine. "The Iraqis must know that we are not going to use such agents against them, because we don't have chemical weapons," Dr. Franz said.
Dr. Sidell said obidoxime chloride was not used for anything in the United States. Furthermore, autoinjectors contain five times the amount of atropine normally administered intravenously to treat malfunctioning hearts.
-------- china
Top Chinese leaders not listed on panel
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 12, 2002
From combined dispatches
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021112-7719900.htm
BEIJING - President Jiang Zemin and several other leaders are not standing for re-election to an elite Communist Party committee, a delegate to this week's party Congress said yesterday, puncturing speculation that Mr. Jiang will resist plans for him to retire.
Mr. Jiang, as well as No. 2 party boss Li Peng and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji among others, were not on an initial list of candidates for the new Central Committee, which was secretly circulated yesterday, a delegate to the ongoing 16th Party Congress who had seen the list told Agence France-Presse.
"All the major leaders are not on the list, except for Hu Jintao," he said, referring to China's 59-year-old vice president, who is expected to take over from Mr. Jiang as party leader at the Congress.
The comments are the first concrete sign that the party is going ahead with a reshuffle of leaders that had been expected to begin at the weeklong 16th Party Congress. It also appears to show the ruling party is set for a major clearing-out of its elderly leadership.
In all, six of the seven members of China's top governing body, the party's Politburo Standing Committee, were not on the initial list, said the eastern province delegate, who asked not to be named.
"Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Li Ruihuan, Zhu Rongji, Li Lanqing are not on the list. Wei Jianxing also is not on the list," he said.
"Of the original Politburo members, only 15 are left," he said. The main Politburo currently contains 21 members.
Officially, the Central Committee elects the Politburo, which in turn elects the Politburo Standing Committee, although any leadership changes are assumed to have been worked out by a coterie of leaders long before the Congress.
However cadres who hold top party positions have to first join the Central Committee.
Delegates to the Party Congress, held in the Great Hall of the People in the center of Beijing, retreated yesterday behind closed doors and were to examine the candidate list.
Some delegates said they had not seen the list, while others refused to comment.
"This hasn't gone through a vote in the Congress, so I can't talk about it," said Shanghai Delegate Ling Donglu, head of the Bao Steel company.
The retirement of leaders from their party posts is expected to be followed by a similar reshuffle of state government positions.
Mr. Jiang is expected to also be stepping down as president in favor of Mr. Hu next March at a meeting of China's parliament, with other leaders such as Mr. Zhu and Mr. Li, currently parliamentary head, also giving up their posts.
However, many observers say Mr. Jiang is hoping to exert a great degree of influence over the new leadership if he does retire.
The president has been trying to secure his legacy at the Congress.
-------- colombia
Colombian Army Launches Operation to Rescue Bishop
November 12, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombia-bishop.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian troops backed by helicopters launched a massive hunt on Tuesday for a senior Roman Catholic bishop who was kidnapped by suspected leftist rebels as the church was again caught in the cross fire of the country's 38-year war.
The kidnapping on Monday of Monsignor Jorge Enrique Jimenez, president of CELAM, the conference of Latin America's Roman Catholic bishops, drew international condemnation from the Vatican to the United Nations.
Pope John Paul appealed to guerrillas to free Jimenez, who was seized with another priest near the capital Bogota by suspected rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- Latin America's most powerful rebel force known as FARC.
The United Nations called the abductions ``unacceptable.''
Jimenez, 60, is bishop of the colonial city of Zipaquira, some 30 miles north of Bogota, known for its subterranean cathedral carved out of salt.
The clergymen had been on their way to a religious service.
The kidnappers' motive was not immediately known but in the past Marxist rebels have held priests for short periods, later releasing them with messages or peace proposals.
The army has suggested the FARC, which was thrown out of peace talks last February by former President Andres Pastrana, could add Jimenez to the list of high-profile kidnap victims it wants to swap for jailed guerrillas. The list includes regional lawmakers, a former defense minister and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
The FARC, a 17,000-member peasant army fighting in a war that claims thousands of lives a year, has not commented on whether it was involved in the kidnapping, which took place in a rural district north of Bogota.
``Since last night we have made a significant deployment of troops in that entire region. We also have some helicopters helping in the operation,'' Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez told reporters. The army is offering a $35,000 reward for information leading to the men's release.
The archbishop of Santiago and CELAM Vice President Francisco Javier Errazuriz flew to Bogota from Chile to temporarily take over the conference's presidency and try to mediate in the kidnapping, a Chilean church official said.
ABDUCTION SHOCKS NATION
The kidnapping shocked this deeply Catholic nation, where the church has played an important role in peace negotiations between the government and leftist rebels and has insisted that peace come with social justice -- a traditional rebel demand.
Cardinal Pedro Rubiano, president of Colombia's Episcopal Conference, accused kidnappers of ``abducting the word of the Lord'' and London-based Amnesty International called it a ``flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.''
The driver, who was freed, said one of the kidnappers identified the group as rebels.
``He told me that they wanted to have a chat with Monsignor and that between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (on Monday) he would be back in town and that we should not worry,'' Uriel Rodriguez said.
Since 1984, guerrillas, paramilitaries or drug gangs have killed 48 priests, two bishops and kidnapped 18 clergymen.
In March gunmen apparently in the pay of drug traffickers killed the archbishop of Cali, Isaias Duarte Cancino.
Colombia has the highest kidnapping rate in the world, with about 3,700 reported in 2001, most carried out by rebels seeking extortion money.
Hard-line President Alvaro Uribe took office in August helped by frustration at peace talks with the FARC, a group branded as ``terrorists'' by the United States and European Union but which claims it is fighting for socialist reforms.
-------- iraq
Iraq war 'could kill 500,000'
Rob Edwards,
12 November 02
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99993043
A war against Iraq could kill half a million people, warns a new report by medical experts - and most would be civilians.
The report claims as many as 260,000 could die in the conflict and its three-month aftermath, with a further 200,000 at risk in the longer term from famine and disease. A civil war in Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths.
Collateral Damage is being published on Tuesday in 14 countries and has been compiled by Medact, an organisation of British health professionals. It comes as the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, is deciding how to respond to a series of deadlines on weapons inspections imposed by the United Nations.
If he fails to meet any conditions, the US and the UK have threatened to destroy Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction using military force.
The report has been commended by both medical and military specialists. "It is really important that people understand the consequences of war," says Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association.
"All doctors look at war with a very large degree of horror because they know the meaning of casualties," she told New Scientist. "Even in the cleanest, most limited conflicts, people die and people suffer."
General Pete Gration, former Chief of the Australian Defence Forces and an opponent of a war on Iraq, adds: "This is no exaggerated tract by a bunch of zealots. It is a coldly factual report by health professionals who draw on the best evidence available."
Nuclear attack
The report assumes an attack on Iraq will begin with sustained air strikes, followed by an invasion of ground troops and culminating in the overthrow of Baghdad.
It concludes that the resulting death toll will be much higher than either the 1991 Gulf War, which killed around 200,000 Iraqis, or the war on Afghanistan, which has so far left less than 5000 dead.
In the report's worst-case scenario, nuclear weapons are fired on Iraq in response to a chemical and b