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NUCLEAR
Nonessential Nukes
UK says no decision yet on Brit Energy
If we go to war with Iraq ...
Palaces Subject to Search, Blix Says
U.N. Monitor Says Iraqis Are Denying Having Arms Cache
Glance at Possible Iraq Inspection Sites
EU Secures Missile Pact, Key Players Stay Away
Powell Says Pakistan Warned on N. Korean Ties
In an age of biowarfare, US sees new role for nukes
Markey letter on Modern Pit Facility
Senators Question Yucca Mountain Science
MILITARY
Top officials knew of arms sales
China Denies Transfer of Radar Systems
Israel Seeks $4 Billion In New Military Aid
Israel Seeks More U.S. Military Aid
Germany to Give Israel Patriot Missiles
Rockets, Napalm, Torpedoes & Lies
Unmanned Predators Now Living Up to Name
Putin Vetoes Curb on News of Terrorism
Critics Say Government Deleted Web Site Material to Push Abstinence
Iraq Inspectors Don't Want Journalists
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Embracing Big Brother
Homeland Security Moves to Begin March 1
Cops Sued Over Homeless
Trading drugs
Navy Secretary Is Nominated for No. 2 Post
Analysis: Al Qaida chief in U.S. custody
ENERGY AND OTHER
Alternative Energy Poll
California ethanol switch to boost gas prices, refiner profits
U.S. Fails to Curb Its Saudi Oil Habit, Experts Say
Defunct Defense Sites Littered With Problems
States seek tougher 'right to know' on toxics
Doctor Claims Cloned Baby Due in Jan.
ACTIVISTS
The ACLU's beef
Indian police arrest 100 in Bhopal disaster protest
Police stop Greenpeace activists
Iran Forbids Demonstrations Defending a Reformist Scholar
Student Leaders Arrested in Iran After Protests
Petaluma suspends 50 student protesters
Release of Chinese Net Activists Sought
Occupational Exposure to Beryllium
-------- NUCLEAR
Nonessential Nukes
'Peaceful' fuels are potential deadly weapons.
By Edwin S. Lyman and Paul L. Leventhal
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Washington Post; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39212-2002Nov25?language=printer
There is growing alarm over a gathering storm of nuclear dangers: terrorists pursuing homemade atomic bombs, Iraq capable of going nuclear as soon as it acquires smuggled nuclear material, India and Pakistan embarked on a nuclear arms race, North Korea acknowledging a new nuclear weapons program, Japanese political leaders openly boasting of nuclear weapons capability as Japan prepares to open a huge plutonium plant.
These threats have a common thread. Each reflects the outcome of a long history of missed opportunities by the United States and other nuclear suppliers to halt commercial production and use of explosive nuclear materials. These materials are "peaceful" fuels for nuclear reactors, but they are also suitable for making nuclear weapons. Access to them or to the technologies for producing them provides the wherewithal for nations and groups to go nuclear.
Today the amount of plutonium in civilian nuclear power programs rivals that in nuclear arsenals, and bomb-grade uranium remains the fuel of choice for operators of research reactors. The ability of international inspections and national physical protection measures to keep these fuels from being diverted or stolen is problematic at best. Even if these were essential fuels, needed to keep the lights on, factories running and medical science advancing, they would be too dangerous to use. But they aren't essential: Nuclear power and research needs can be met without the weapons-suitable fuels, because low-enriched uranium fuels, unsuitable for weapons, are readily available or under active development.
The current generation of nuclear power reactors already operates on low-enriched or natural uranium. Plutonium fuels are being introduced simply to draw down surpluses that never should have been created in the first place. Development of the plutonium-fueled breeder reactor provided the original rationale for producing civilian plutonium, but the breeder has caused enormous cost and safety problems everywhere it has been tried, and it should be abandoned. Continuing efforts to convert research reactors from bomb-grade to low-enriched uranium fuels should be accelerated and completed. Of equal importance is the need to get rid of the explosive fuels already produced. This can be accomplished by denaturing bomb-grade uranium into low-enriched fuel for power reactors -- something already being done with 500 tons of surplus Russian weapons uranium -- and by disposing of plutonium (which cannot be denatured) in highly radioactive or highly diluted waste.
But two great obstacles stand in the way of eliminating the commercial use of explosive nuclear materials. First is the average citizen's unwillingness to dwell on the dangers of nuclear explosives going astray. Who, after all, wants to contemplate his own nuclear annihilation? Yet unless there is a popular push on governments to adopt available solutions, there can be little hope of stemming the flows of these city-busting explosives.
Second is the reluctance of nuclear experts and policymakers to acknowledge and deal aggressively with a global cancer of their own making. Diplomatic efforts begun by the Ford and Carter administrations to steer the world clear of civilian use of plutonium and bomb-grade uranium were mostly abandoned after they met fierce resistance from the nuclear industry and bureaucracy both at home and abroad. Having failed to prevent the unnecessary spread of explosive nuclear fuels, policymakers now seek to make a virtue out of managing them. But as the situation with India and Pakistan suggests, controlling nuclear weapons made from civilian fuels could be an exercise in managing the unmanageable, with horrific consequences. Managing these fuels once they are obtained by Saddam Hussein or by terrorists is out of the question.
The United States and Russia are ideally positioned to lead the way as they prepare to dispose of tons of surplus weapons plutonium. But their nuclear bureaucracies share a devotion to plutonium, and they now plan to introduce weapons plutonium as fuel in their commercial power plants. Moreover, a program to convert all research reactors in the world to low-enriched fuel is now threatened by a plan to import Russian weapons uranium for use in some U.S. research reactors instead of having it denatured. These are precisely the wrong examples for the world and raise risks of nuclear terrorism in both countries.
The situation has the makings of what the late historian Barbara Tuchman described in "The March of Folly": the pursuit of disastrous policies contrary to self-interest. To qualify as folly, she wrote, "a policy must have been seen as counter-productive in its own time" and "a feasible alternative course of action must have been available."
Calamitous nuclear folly on a global scale can still be averted. Alternatives to explosive nuclear fuels are readily available. If we are to avoid a world awash in nuclear weapons, we must stop the folly and pursue the alternatives.
Edwin S. Lyman is president of the Nuclear Control Institute. Paul L. Leventhal is the institute's president emeritus and co-editor of the book "Nuclear Power and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons."
-------- britain
UK says no decision yet on Brit Energy
Story by Daniel Morrissey,
REUTERS UK:
November 26, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18785/story.htm
MANCHESTER, England - The UK government has yet to decide what to do about financially stricken nuclear generator British Energy Plc just days before an emergency state loan expires, a senior minister said yesterday.
The near-collapse of the provider of a fifth of Britain's electricity has created a major headache for the government, Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt told UK business leaders in Manchester. British Energy ran into trouble this year when power prices fell below its cost of production.
"We have a very difficult situation at British Energy with that loan expiring on Friday," Hewitt told the Confederation of British Industry's annual conference.
Hewitt said she would make a statement on the issue before this Friday's deadline for repayment of the 650 million pound ($1.02 billion) loan. She later told Reuters the government remained undecided on the issue.
"No decisions have been made yet, but when they are made, I will announce it to parliament," she said. "These are highly market-sensitive issues."
British Energy went to the government for a bailout in September. The current loan, already extended once, expires on Friday November 29. The government has refused to rule out putting the company into administration but talks are continuing about a financial restructuring and possible adjustments to the power market that could make life easier for the company.
Hewitt's comments are the clearest indication yet that the web of energy, environment and industrial policy issues the crisis has thrown up will drag the problem into next year.
STATEMENT BEFORE FRIDAY
Environmental campaigners and some competitors suffering in an oversupplied market say the aid is unfair, but the government has said it must support the nuclear industry for reasons of safety and security of supply.
Industry and government sources have told Reuters that a debt-for-equity restructuring package and a possible renegotiation of contracts with state nuclear fuels group BNFL are among actions being discussed.
British Energy is also in talks to sell its majority holding in Canadian nuclear project Bruce Power.
(additional reporting by Andrew Callus).
-------- depleted uranium
If we go to war with Iraq ...
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002
Subject: [du-list] Fwd from Len Dietz on DU
Reply-To: "Military Toxics Project" mtp@miltoxproj.org
About two weeks ago I was contacted by Larry Johnson, Foreign Desk Editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligence newspaper. He is writing a comprehensive article on the use of DU munitions. He plans to publish it next Tuesday in the Post-Intelligence. It will be on a wire service available to other newspapers, like the NY Times. It will be interesting to see if they use any of it....
Dr. Durakovic and his associates are preparing one or two more papers for publication. Not enough details yet to pass on. Unfortunately, our work in measuring the concentration of DU in their 24 hr urine samples is not going to define Gulf War illness or heal them. However, the medical and scientific information resulting from the investigation will add to the evidence why DU is dangerous to health. These weapons must be banned by international treaties.
Please let me know if you received this information.
Regards,
Len Dietz
Published in Letters to the Editor on November 8, 2002 in the Daily Gazette newspaper, Schenectady, NY.
If we go to war with Iraq, large quantities of depleted uranium (DU) munitions will be used in metal uranium penetrators in cannon rounds and deep earth penetrating bombs (bunker busters). But this time fighting will be in urban areas, not in the desert as before. Large numbers of soldiers and civilians will be exposed to concentrated fallout of radioactively and chemically poisonous aerosol particles of ceramic DU oxide that will be inhaled and become trapped in the lungs. Gulf War illness again will be experienced by American soldiers and allied forces, and by local civilians.
More than 100,000 American veterans of the Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness: about one in seven. Exposure to DU may be a contributing factor. Even though inhalation is the most likely pathway for contamination, the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have done no systematic medical investigation of the health effects of DU in veteransâ€(tm) lungs. In an independent investigation, a small group of 27 ill British, Canadian and American Gulf War veterans have been tested for the presence of DU in their 24 hour urine samples collected 8-9 yeas after the war. Fourteen veterans tested positive for DU. This is reported in a research paper by A. Durakovic, P. Horan and L. Dietz in the peer-reviewed medical journal Military Medicine, August 2002 issue. This is a shocking result because it indicates that ceramic DU aerosol particles have a residence time of many years in the lungs. The highly insoluble nature of ceramic DU particles was investigated in 1985 by Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories for the U.S. Army.
Saddam Hussein clearly is a bad guy, but a second war in Iraq will add immeasurably to the suffering of Iraqi civilians and add much more DU contamination to the environment. Depleted uranium contamination is permanent. For example, the former National Lead Industries DU processing plant in Colonie is being cleaned up for unrestricted use to a guideline of 35 picocuries of uranium-238 per gram of soil. This will leave more than 100 times as much loose uranium-238 contamination from DU in the soil as occurs there naturally.
World leaders must find a different way than war to resolve the Iraqi issue. If we go to war, wouldnâ€(tm)t it be ironic if future historians record that the DU super weapons of mass destruction that we used left much longer lasting health and environmental problems than any biological or chemical weapons?
Leonard A. Dietz
135 Glen Eddy Drive
Niskayuna, NY 12309
Tel.: 518-377-1735
-------- inspections
Palaces Subject to Search, Blix Says
U.N. Team Leader Plans to Move Quickly in Iraq
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 26, 2002; Page
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38882-2002Nov25?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 25 -- The U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said today that he has informed Iraq that he will exercise his right to inspect President Saddam Hussein's presidential compounds and move swiftly to establish an outpost in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to speed the pace of inspections.
Blix also revealed that in meetings with weapons inspectors last week, Iraq once again denied possessing weapons of mass destruction. He said such statements would have to be verified after Iraq makes a formal declaration about its weapons programs by Dec. 8.
"If the Iraqi side were to state -- as it still did at our meeting -- that there were no such programs, it would need to provide convincing documentary or other evidence," Blix told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on his visit to Baghdad last week.
The remarks of the Swedish arms expert, issued in a closed door meeting of the Security Council, appeared calculated to assure the United States and other council members that he plans to move quickly to test Iraq's cooperation with the newest U.N. resolution on weapons inspections, approved unanimously on Nov. 8.
Blix, the executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, also indicated that some potential points of friction had emerged during his visit to Baghdad. He noted that Iraq had insisted that inspections of presidential sites and government ministries -- where U.S. officials suspect Hussein could be hiding forbidden weapons -- could not be conducted in the same manner as other facilities.
"The Iraqi side assured us that Iraq intended to provide full cooperation . . . while expecting correct and professional conduct from inspecting organizations," Blix told the council, according to a copy of his statement. But he added that "the Iraqi side . . . remarked that entry into a presidential site and or a ministry was not exactly the same thing as entry into a factory."
Blix said that the "essential infrastructure" for resumed inspections is in place in Iraq and was being tested. He said that inspections would formally start Wednesday with a team of about 17 U.N. inspectors, who arrived in Baghdad today. The U.N. inspection program would quickly expand, reaching a total of at least 100 inspectors by the end of the year.
The rapid buildup has been accompanied by an intensification of media coverage in Iraq. Blix voiced concern that Iraq would permit scores of journalists to monitor the U.N. arms experts activities, saying that the inspections "could not be allowed to turn into some circus." He added, "The Iraqi side took note of this but explained that it might invite media to visit such sites after the inspectors had finished their work."
The resumption of inspections for the first time in four years comes just two weeks after the Security Council adopted a tough new inspection mandate that requires Iraq to grant U.N. inspectors immediate access to any location in the country or face "serious consequences."
Blix said that he had put Iraq on notice that he would exercise those rights, informing them that he would expand the U.N.'s headquarters building in Baghdad, send U.N. security guards to protect U.N. facilities and request a list of names of Iraqi officials associated with future and present Iraqi weapons programs.
At the same time, he expressed sympathy for Iraq's claim that it would not be able to fully comply with the Security Council's demand that it provide a complete declaration on its civilian and military chemical, biological and nuclear programs by the Dec. 8 deadline.
While denying they possess banned weapons, Iraqi officials told Blix that they were uncertain whether the Security Council's terms required that they declare every single item produced in its commercial chemical industry, citing plastic slippers as an example. Blix said that he and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, lacked the authority to interpret the Security Council's mandate but advised the Iraqis to focus on assembling a complete picture of its past and present chemical, biological and nuclear programs. He also counseled the Iraqis to include a note in its declaration assuring the Security Council that it will "provide more detailed information" on its civilian chemical and biological industries later.
Russia's U.N. ambassador, Sergey Lavrov, seized on Blix's comments, saying that the Security Council should extend the deadline for Iraq to file its declaration, according to a council diplomat. But John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the council should stick to the current deadline.
Following the meeting, the Security Council agreed to postpone for nine days a vote on a separate resolution that would allow Iraq to continue exporting oil under the terms of the U.N. oil-for-food program. The council typically renews Iraq's mandate to export oil every six months.
--------
THE INSPECTIONS
U.N. Monitor Says Iraqis Are Denying Having Arms Cache
November 26, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/international/middleeast/26IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 25 - Iraqi officials have told United Nations inspectors in Baghdad that they have no weapons of mass destruction and expressed reservations about inspections of President Saddam Hussein's palaces, Hans Blix, one of the inspections chiefs, said here today.
Briefing the Security Council, Mr. Blix said Iraqi officials had pledged to cooperate fully with the inspections, but had also raised a host of skeptical questions about a declaration of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons due on Dec. 8.
Suggesting that the declaration was too broad to finish by that deadline, the Iraqis wondered if they had to include every detail of their civilian chemical industries, down to "the production of plastic slippers," Mr. Blix said.
He said he had responded with a curt warning that if Iraq was going to claim to be clean, it would have to provide convincing evidence.
The weapons chief gave a glimpse of his tough stance and Iraq's ambivalent reaction in his first report to the Council since he and Mohamed ElBaradei, the top nuclear inspector, traveled to Baghdad a week ago, beginning a new round of inspections after a four-year hiatus. The first contingent of 19 United Nations experts arrived in Baghdad today, saying they planned to conduct the first inspections on Wednesday.
On a day when many Council nations expected a show of unity to support the inspections, some diplomats were surprised that the United States wanted to add several items that it said could be used for military purposes to a list of restricted imports to Iraq.
When debate produced no accord on whether or how to revise the list, the Council voted tonight to extend the mandate for United Nations monitoring of Iraqi oil sales until Dec. 4. It was set to expire at midnight tonight.
The program, called oil for food, uses Iraqi oil revenues to buy food, medicine and other civilian goods for the population.
At the behest of the Pentagon, American officials said, the United States ambassador here, John D. Negroponte, insisted on adding several medical and communications items to the list of goods that must pass United Nations review. They included global positioning scanning devices, equipment to jam radio intercepts and special 7-inch injectors to administer the drug atropine, as well as the drug itself. It is used to resuscitate heart attack patients, but can also be a treatment for victims of attacks with chemical nerve agents.
The United States was also seeking to block large-scale imports of Cipro, a strong antibiotic that can be used to treat anthrax infection, administration officials said.
Mr. Negroponte said the United States believed that those goods "did not have a benign, civilian or purely humanitarian purpose." He said Washington insisted on extending the debate for nine days in order to set a timetable for revising the list of goods before it would approve renewing the oil-for-food program.
Other Council diplomats were frustrated that the United States insisted on the revisions to the list as the deadline approached. The list has been the subject of long and contentious debate in the past, and most Council nations were hoping to avoid getting into it again until sometime next year, to avoid undermining the weapons inspections.
"We would like to have a solution to this, and everybody must try to come together," Ambassador Peter Ole Kolby of Norway said in support of the program, with a diplomatic hint of frustration.
Mr. Blix said he had told Iraq to expect aggressive surprise inspections.
"The Council has authorized us to go anywhere anytime, and we intend to do so without telling anyone in advance," Mr. Blix said he had informed Iraq, in comments that were praised by American officials.
While saying they would do nothing to delay the inspections, the Iraqi officials, led by Gen. Amir Hammudi al-Saadi, also observed that entering "into a presidential site or a ministry was not exactly the same thing as entry into a factory."
Resolution 1441, adopted unanimously by the Council on Nov. 8 to give the inspectors a new, forceful mandate, authorizes them to inspect the vast compounds around Mr. Hussein's nine palaces.
Most Council nations were pleased by Mr. Blix's report, which was endorsed by Mr. ElBaradei, that the inspections were moving forward as planned in the resolution.
"So far so good," said the Chinese ambassador, Wang Yingfan, speaking for the 15-nation Council.
But differences among the Council powers surfaced in the discussion after Mr. Blix's briefing, diplomats said. The Russian ambassador, Sergey Lavrov, took issue with Mr. Blix's statement that "many governments" believed that there were still programs to build weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"I can only think of a few," Mr. Lavrov said, according to diplomats in the session, making it clear that Russia was not one of them.
Mr. Blix noted that the inspections teams would begin their work 19 days after Resolution 1441 was passed, considerably faster than the 45 days the Security Council allowed. He said he and Mr. ElBaradei expected to provide a comprehensive report to the Council on their progress on Jan. 27.
He said the inspection chiefs had stressed that Iraq's Dec. 8 declaration had to be complete, disclosing any prohibited program. He said past declarations by Iraq "left it an open question whether some weapons remained."
Mr. Blix said today that the Iraqis acknowledged that there were some discrepancies and gaps about long-range missiles in documents they had already provided to the inspectors. Iraqi officials volunteered to correct the information soon.
Secretary General Kofi Annan received only today an 11-page letter Iraq sent to him on Saturday picking apart the Council resolution clause by clause, calling it a violation of international law and an excuse for the United States to go to war.
Speaking in Paris, Mr. Annan said Iraq should cooperate with the inspections. "That is the only way to avoid conflict in the region," he said.
Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the nuclear inspectors, said in Baghdad that they would carry out the inspections with "suspicious minds," on the lookout for Iraqi deception.
Mr. ElBaradei, in Cairo, reminded Baghdad that if the inspectors gave a positive report, their work could be "an alternative to war, not a precursor to war."
Support From Britain
LONDON, Nov. 25 (AP) - Britain's Parliament declared its support today for the United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq, despite rumblings of dissent over the manner in which military action would be decided.
The decision came after Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that President Hussein would face "serious consequences" if he denied that Iraq possessed banned weapons.
"We have no doubt he does have weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Blair said at a news conference. "So let's wait and see what he actually says."
After five hours of debate in the House of Commons, a motion by Mr. Blair's government in favor of United Nations Resolution 1441 was approved without a vote when the legislators called out their approval with a shout of "Aye."
Shortly before, an amendment requiring parliamentary approval for any use of British troops - and urging a new Security Council mandate for military action to enforce Resolution 1441 - was defeated by a vote of 452 to 85.
The supporters of the amendment, proposed by the opposition Liberal Democrats, included 32 members of Mr. Blair's Labor Party.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the Commons that it would be "utterly irresponsible" to offer legislators a vote to pre-approve military action if it would put lives of British forces at risk.
--------
Glance at Possible Iraq Inspection Sites
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Sites.html
Some previously inspected and ``neutralized'' sites in Iraq that U.N. weapons monitors are expected to revisit, as they follow up on their work broken off in 1998:
AL-FURAT
Key to Iraq's old nuclear weapons program, 18 miles south of Baghdad. International inspectors in the 1990s destroyed equipment assembled for ``enriching'' uranium to bomb-grade level. Rebuilding at the site raises questions about a possible resumption of weapons development. Advertisement
AL-FALLUJAH
Rebuilding is reported at this site, 30 miles west of Baghdad, formerly associated with Iraq's chemical weapons program. The U.S. government has raised questions about a chlorine plant, whose product has many civilian uses but also can serve as a component of chemical weapons.
AMARIYAH SERUM AND VACCINE INSTITUTE
Just outside Baghdad at Abu Ghraib, site of biological weapons-related research in the 1980s. It is reported to have expanded its storage capacity, to an extent the U.S. government says exceeds Iraq's needs. Iraq contends the facility only makes and stores human vaccines.
AL-RAFAH
Satellite photos show a new missile test facility at this site, 30 miles southwest of Baghdad, that the U.S. government says must be for prohibited longer-range missiles. The Iraqis counter that the structure can be used only for permitted shorter-range missile engines.
-------- missile defense
EU Secures Missile Pact, Key Players Stay Away
November 26, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-dutch-ballistic.html
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Ninety-three countries met in the Netherlands Tuesday in an attempt to limit the spread of ballistic missiles, but several key states stayed away.
North Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, China and Israel were among the countries that chose not to sign the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation while Iraq was not invited to Monday's signing ceremony.
The European Union led the campaign for the voluntary code which calls for restraint in the development, testing and use of ballistic missiles and asks countries to give notice of any missile launches to reduce mistrust between member states.
Missile build-ups in North Korea and Iran, nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan and a U.S. drive for a missile defense system have turned the spotlight on ballistic missile proliferation around the world.
The United States signed the code but said Monday it reserved the right to a flexible interpretation of its provisions.
Russia, France, Britain, Germany, Japan, Jordan, Turkey, Belarus, Libya and Ukraine were among the signatories.
Tuesday's talks focused on implementing the code.
DUTCH REGRET
The Dutch government, which hosted the two-day conference in The Hague, said the new pact was modest but hoped more countries would eventually sign up.
``We want this code to grow. We want it to achieve universal adherence. And so, we regret not all countries have been able to sign up,'' Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.
Besides the world's main nuclear powers led by the United States and Russia, many states now have ballistic missiles.
India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea have all produced or tested missiles capable of carrying warheads more than 600 miles.
The EU decided to exclude Iraq at a time when United Nations inspectors have returned to Baghdad to search for weapons of mass destruction.
``It was an EU decision since the very beginning to exclude Iraq because of its failure to comply with previous U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning their weapons,'' a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
The United States has threatened military action against Iraq, accusing it of seeking nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in violation of U.N. resolutions. Iraq denies the charge.
All other U.N. members were invited to the conference.
The EU resolved in June last year to try to drum up support for the code. Meetings were held in Paris and Madrid this year to negotiate a draft.
-------- pakistan
Powell Says Pakistan Warned on N. Korean Ties
Musharraf Told He Will Face 'Consequences' if Nuclear Transfers Continue
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 26, 2002; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39256-2002Nov25?language=printer
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 25 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today Pakistan understands that "consequences" will apply if the United States discovers that the Pakistani government continues to make suspect nuclear transfers to North Korea.
Powell's statement, made to reporters while traveling here for a conference with Mexican officials, suggested a public hardening of the administration's stance toward its ally in the fight against terrorism. Previously, Powell had said that he had been assured by Pakistan that it is not currently engaging in such transactions, but he had not raised the possibility of U.S. action against Pakistan.
Powell has privately delivered this message to the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, making it clear that the United States would be watching Pakistan's behavior closely.
"In my conversations with President Musharraf in recent months, I have made clear to him that any, any sort of contact between Pakistan and North Korea we believe would be improper, inappropriate and would have consequences," Powell said. "He has assured me on more than one occasion that there are no further contacts."
The administration has evidence that Pakistan continued to receive missile parts from North Korea in exchange for possible nuclear plans and materials as recently as three months ago, according to reports in Washington last week. Powell said today he could not discuss reports of recent transactions.
Since the administration confronted North Korea with evidence of its secret program to build nuclear weapons using enriched uranium, officials have sought to isolate the communist state until it agrees to dismantle the program. But officials have taken a much softer stance against Pakistan, despite increasing evidence that it played a key role in the development of the North Korean program. In large part, this is because officials believe it is essential to maintain Pakistan's cooperation in the war against terrorism.
"President Musharraf understands the seriousness of the issue," Powell said, adding that he has discussed it both "face-to-face" with Musharraf and on the phone, including several times in the past month. "Whenever he and I communicate with each other, I reinforce the point," Powell said.
Under U.S. law, a nation must face sanctions if it allows the transfer of uranium enrichment technology without international safeguards, unless the president issues a waiver. "There are laws that apply, and we will obey the laws," Powell said. He declined to specify exactly how Pakistan would be sanctioned if the illicit trade continues.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
In an age of biowarfare, US sees new role for nukes
Bush administration mulls resuming nuclear testing and developing tactical warheads to deal with threats like Iraq.
By Brad Knickerbocker
The Christian Science Monitor
November 26, 2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1126/p02s02-usmi.html
As United Nations inspectors fan out across Iraq - looking for evidence of Saddam Hussein's secret arsenal - the United States is rethinking the future of its own weapons of mass destruction.
Among the issues being discussed by US officials and the experts who advise them in this era of stateless terrorism and other forms of "unconventional warfare" are these: The resumption of nuclear weapons testing; ambivalence over controlling chemical and biological weapons at a time when advancing technology offers new opportunities to control the battlefield; and the possible development of tactical nuclear bombs to go after the kind of hardened targets that more than 70 countries - especially Iraq - now use to hide their most threatening weapons.
All of this would be happening even if the terrorist attacks of 9/11 had not occurred, even if war with Iraq were not as close as it is today. But the earthshaking events that have marked the beginning of the 21st century focus attention on the most intimidating military assets belonging to the world's lone superpower.
The US hasn't test-fired any nuclear devices since 1992. Officials figure it would take two to three years to be ready to resume testing. The administration wants to reduce that to a shorter period - not only to ensure that its aging stockpile of warheads is dependable, but also to allow the testing of any newly designed weapons.
The Pentagon's congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review calls for a "revitalized nuclear weapons complex that will ... be able, if directed, to design, develop, manufacture, and certify new warheads in response to new national requirements; and maintain readiness to resume underground nuclear testing if required."
More recently, a senior official urged reconsideration of the 10-year US moratorium on testing.
"We will need to refurbish several aging weapons systems," said defense undersecretary Edward Aldridge in an October memo to senior nuclear policymakers. "We must also be prepared to respond to new nuclear-weapon requirements in the future." Congress recently authorized the nation's nuclear weapons labs to weigh the benefits and costs of being able to test such weapons within six months.
While highly precise conventional arms - laser-guided bolts from the blue - made headlines in Afghanistan, many experts say they will never completely replace nuclear weapons.
"To ensure that enemy facilities or forces are knocked out and cannot be reconstituted, attacks with nuclear weapons may be necessary," the National Institute for Public Policy in Fairfax, Va., reported last year.
"The United States may need to field simple, low-yield, precision-guided nuclear weapons for possible use against select hardened targets such as underground biological weapons."
Several of that report's authors are now officials in the Bush administration, including Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Defense Science Board chairman William Schneider.
One of the attractions of small nuclear weapons, in the eyes of some theorists, is that they can more effectively destroy biological or chemical stockpiles than can conventional explosives.
In Geneva recently, Stephen Rademaker. US assistant secretary of state for arms control, said he was "very pleased" with international adoption of measures to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. He warned, however, that the 1972 treaty banning such weapons is "inherently unverifiable." This implies that the US needs to know as much as possible about any biological or chemical threats it may face.
The difficulty here is that even preparing to defend against such weapons requires research on the weapons themselves. In its examination of biomedical sciences and the pharmaceutical industry - both involved in Pentagon projects - the Federation of American Scientists reports that "an immense amount of time and money [is] being invested" in new technologies that could "significantly complicate the control of chemical and biological weapons."
Arms-control advocates also worry that defending against such weapons - especially those in underground bunkers - may increase the pressure to develop small,tactical nuclear weapons.
At this point, although official discussions have escalated, there is no rush to resume a nuclear arms race that had abated in recent years.
"Candidly, I cannot detect any plausible nuclear warfighting scenarios in the 'axis of evil' context," says John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, an analysis organization in Alexandria, Va., (referring to Bush's characterization of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea). "I am guessing that much of this is a discussion about [China]."
As is often the case with what could be a politically wrenching change in military strategy and doctrine, those in uniform tend to be more cautious than their civilian bosses. "In my experience, there is little to zero interest among military leaders in actually using nuclear weapons," says Larry Seaquist, a retired Navy warship captain and Pentagon strategist. "They recognize that nuclear employment, by breaking the half-century taboo since the two weapons used [on Japan] in 1945, would take us into a whole new world."
"They also recognize that the calculus of nuclear weapon use is totally different in these rogue-nation situations like Iraq than it was in the cold war," says Captain Seaquist. In other words, the old balance-of-terror nuclear regime of "mutual assured destruction" that kept the United States and the former Soviet Union from blowing each other up doesn't necessarily work with rogue states such as Iraq or with stateless terrorist organizations such as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Markey letter on Modern Pit Facility
From: Tannenbaum, Benn [mailto:Benn.Tannenbaum@mail.house.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Here is the letter my boss wrote, as well as the press release. Share and enjoy. Note that it's not yet up on our website, but will be early next week.
Benn Tannenbaum, Ph.D.
Congressional Science Fellow
2108 Rayburn Building
November 26, 2002
MARKEY QUESTIONS NEED FOR NEW NUCLEAR BOMB FACTORY
Facility is inconsistent with nuclear treaties, nonproliferation goals
Washington, DC: Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and co-chairman of the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, today released a letter to Spencer Abraham, Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE), asking for information related to DOE's proposal to build the Modern Pit Facility, a new multi-billion dollar facility that would be used to manufacture plutonium pits for nuclear warheads.
"The Bush Administration claims to be committed to nuclear non-proliferation, and has promised to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, yet it also wants to build a new bomb factory" said Rep. Markey. "This inconsistent policy can only undermine U.S. efforts to convince other nations to abide by their non-proliferation obligations. Further, DOE can't find anything wrong with the 10,000 warheads that are already deployed, or the 5,000 warheads that could easily be re-deployed, or the 7,000 pits left over from dismantled warheads. I just don't see a need for this costly new facility."
Press releases from the Department of Energy claim that the United States does not have, but needs, a new facility to produce hundred of new pits per year. The facility would not come on-line until 2018, a time when the Bush Administration projects 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads. However, a facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory has built 11 test pits and will be able to make certified pits by April 2003; this facility will be able to produce 20 pits per year.
Rep. Markey's letter asked for the following information from the Department of Energy:
· How long does it take to replace the existing stockpile of nuclear warheads with existing, or soon to be completed, facilities? How often does the stockpile need to be replaced? Can either of these questions be answered, prior to the completion of the current experiments at Los Alamos?
· What affect will this facility have on the nonproliferation agreements signed by the United States?
Copies of all correspondence can be found at http://www.house.gov/markey/http://www.house.gov/markey/
The Honorable Edward Markey US House Of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 202-225-2836 7th District, Massachusetts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Benn Tannenbaum or Israel Klein (202) 225-2836
-------- nevada
Senators Question Yucca Mountain Science
November 26, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-26-09.asp#anchor1
WASHINGTON, DC - Citing evidence of fraud and abuse, Nevada's U.S. senators have asked for a federal investigation into defects in the scientific process within the Yucca Mountain project.
Senators Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, referred to a recent story in the "Las Vegas Review Journal" which raised allegations of mistreatment of quality assurance personnel who identified technical deficiencies in the project. According to the article, two quality assurance personnel were removed from their jobs with the Yucca Mountain project because they were aggressive in identifying technical deficiencies in the project.
"These workers were removed because they were doing the right thing," Senator Reid said. "Their job was to monitor the quality of the work being done at Yucca Mountain and once they came forward and identified defects with the science, they were either terminated or relocated. Apparently, these employees were used as an example keep your mouth shut or you'll be removed. I can't help but wonder how many other employees have damaging information and are afraid to come forward."
Earlier this year, Congress voted to approve the Yucca Mountain site, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a permanent repository for some 77,000 tons of high level radioactive wastes, including spent fuel from nuclear reactors. The controversial decision overrode objections from Nevada's Congressional delegation, state government and much of the state's population.
The news that some workers at the massive underground construction site have questioned the site's safety raised new concerns among critics of the project.
"We have project workers who are trying to warn the public about the possible dangers at Yucca Mountain," said Senator Ensign. "Now it appears that someone at the Department of Energy may be trying to silence those voices. No one should be intimidated, belittled, or fired for doing their job."
In a letter sent Monday, Reid and Ensign asked the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, to investigate the quality assurance problems raised by the Yucca Mountain contractors. The letter also asks the GAO to look at allegations stemming from an anonymous whistleblower letter that there are problems managing the vast amounts of data that will be used to make a licensing determination from the project.
"After receiving this letter, we learned that the Department of Energy had issued a notification of potential catastrophic loss of data stored in antiquated storage systems," the senators wrote. "This information is crucial to the accurate modeling of the Yucca Mountain site."
The federal government has spent almost $8 billion dollars so far to identify and test the Yucca Mountain site as potential nuclear repository. The planned site is projected to cost at least $80 billion more to complete, the senators noted.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
Top officials knew of arms sales
November 26, 2002
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20021126-83181578.htm
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and top officials must have been aware of the country's arms sales to Iraq but did nothing to prevent them, a leading think tank says in an upcoming report.
The Belgrade, Yugoslavia, newspaper Danas quotes from an unpublished report by the International Crisis Group (ICG):
"At stake is an extensively ramified and highly organized network and it was necessary for many players to be involved in operation code named Zora [Dawn] in the army and, by all accounts, among Yugoslav and Serbian politicians."
The list of those potentially implicated in the arms trade with Iraq includes Mr. Kostunica, federal Prime Minister Dragisa Pesic, federal ministers of Defense and the Interior Velimir Radojevic and Zoran Zivkovic, Serbia's Police Minister Dusan Mihajlovic and the head of the army counterintelligence service, Gen. Aca Tomic, Danas said.
The officials failed to stop the arms sales despite the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry warning the sales were a breach of a United Nations embargo, the newspaper said.
The U.S. government officially warned Yugoslavia of the illicit trade in July 2001, the ICG is said to have pointed out, and indicated that individual officials and companies connected with Mr. Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, known locally as the DSS; Mr. Pesic's Socialist People's Party in Montenegro; Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic's Democratic Party; the New Democracy party headed by Mr. Mihajlovic might also have been embroiled.
The ICG report said the Foreign Ministry reminded the federal government in a document presented to it last January that the United States had sent a note to the government on the matter and warned that continuing trade with Iraq might endanger Yugoslavia's effort to reintegrate with international institutions and seriously affect its relations with Washington.
The document argued for an improvement in these relations, especially in the war against terrorism, the ICG report added. The ministry, it said, urged that the highest government bodies pay special attention to the arms-sales problem so as to facilitate attaining the objectives of membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace program and the Council of Europe as preconditions for reaching an agreement with the European Union on affiliation with it.
The Foreign Ministry document was endorsed by the government in January. However, relevant federal ministries failed to act on the recommendations, the report said.
On Aug. 16, the Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the Defense Ministry, the Customs Service, top army leaders and Serbian and Montenegrin police ministries reminding them that Yugoslavia is a U.N. member and as such prohibited from trading with Iraq and other countries under the U.N. embargo.
According to the ICG, Jugoimport, the Yugoslav company in charge of all deals with Iraq , was the main arms exporter to Iraq.
Jugoimport is controlled by the federal government. Mr. Mihajlovic is chairman of the board, whose members include Mr. Zivkovic, Mr. Radojevic and former federal Economics Minister Jovan Rankovic, who is close to Mr. Kostunica.
-------- china
China Denies Transfer of Radar Systems
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Ukraine-Iraq.html
BEIJING (AP) -- China denied involvement Tuesday in an alleged transfer of sophisticated radar systems from Ukraine to Iraq, responding to U.S. and British investigators who cited a ``credible possibility'' that a transaction took place through an intermediary.
The sale of the Kolchuha radar systems, which can be used to track Western aircraft in Baghdad's no-fly zones, would violate U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
``There is no such question of China transferring radar systems to Iraq,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing. ``The Chinese government has strictly implemented the relevant sanctions by the U.N. on Iraq.''
Kong added that cooperation between China and Ukraine in various areas -- including the military -- is in accord with international conventions.
The United States has not said which country it believes acted as an intermediary in the alleged weapons transfer.
But the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, said Tuesday that China was of ``special concern'' to the investigators.
Ukrainian officials told the investigators that they sold four Kolchuha radar systems to China and, at the request of the Chinese, modified a standard clause prohibiting third-party transfers.
Ukraine declined to provide a copy of the Chinese sales contract or other documents that might confirm whether the systems remain in China, according to the inspectors' report.
Kong declined to say whether China in fact bought the radar systems, and Ukraine has sought to downplay the entire issue.
``Don't make an elephant out of a fly,'' Ukraine foreign ministry spokesman Serhiy Borodenkov said. ``We are totally open.''
Pascual said the United States has provided the U.N. Security Council's Iraq sanctions committee with a copy of a report by the team of 13 American and British experts. The report was released Monday by the U.S. Embassy in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
In the report, the investigators said they were unable to prove Ukraine transferred radar systems to Iraq ``under openly declared contracts,'' but said that ``covert or illegal arms transfers, particularly with the complicity of third parties, remain a credible possibility.''
The investigators spent a week in Ukraine last month looking into whether the country sent any Kolchuha radar systems to Baghdad in violation of U.N. sanctions.
The investigation came after the U.S. State Department said it had verified the authenticity of a July 2000 recording in which Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma is allegedly heard approving the sale of a Kolchuha system to Iraq for $100 million. Kuchma has denied the allegations.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Seeks $4 Billion In New Military Aid
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 26, 2002; Page
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38823-2002Nov25?language=printer
Israel has asked the United States for $4 billion in new military assistance to defray the costs of fighting terrorism and the potential expense of preparing for a U.S. war in Iraq, along with $10 billion in loan guarantees to bolster its struggling economy, Bush administration officials said.
The request was presented by Dov Weisglass, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, and the director of Israel's finance ministry at a White House meeting yesterday with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, officials said.
Israel receives more U.S. military aid than any other country, in amounts governed by a bilateral agreement that annually increases military payments while reducing economic assistance. The State Department announced last week that it intended to ask Congress for $2.16 billion in military assistance to Israel for fiscal 2004, up from $2.1 billion requested for 2003 and $2.04 billion allocated in 2002. The payments requested yesterday would be in addition to those amounts.
In yesterday's meeting, the Israelis presented a detailed description of the country's economic woes -- a combination of rising military costs, a growing deficit and increased unemployment along with falling income from taxes and tourism, according to an Israeli official. The official said Israel believed that several countries, including Turkey and Jordan, had discussed increased U.S. assistance in exchange for expenses they might incur during a war with Iraq, and felt that Israel could make the same case.
Rice made no commitment, according to administration officials, but said the request would be taken under consideration. Subjects of further discussion, officials said, included the time period over which such a sum could be paid, and whether to consider just the aid request, the loan guarantee, or both.
One administration official said the $4 billion figure included $800 million that Israel said the Clinton administration had agreed to as compensation for its May 2000 military withdrawal from southern Lebanon, which the Bush administration declined to honor. Also cited were ongoing costs to combat Palestinian attacks and for the continued occupation of parts of the West Bank; contributions to the global anti-terrorism campaign and what the official called "a payoff for not responding to Iraq."
The United States persuaded Israel, whose arsenal is the most powerful in the Middle East and isbelieved to include a substantial nuclear stockpile, not to respond to Iraqi missile attacks during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Similar requests have been made by the Bush administration in anticipation of another potential war with Iraq, although the Sharon government has said it would retaliate against a direct attack.
--------
Israel Seeks More U.S. Military Aid
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Mideast.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Israel is asking the Bush administration for about $4 billion in new military aid and $8 billion to $10 billion in loan guarantees to bolster its economy, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and the director general of Israel's finance ministry, Ohad Marani, made the request at a meeting Monday with Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.
The Israeli Embassy declined to disclose how much help was requested, but said the Israelis were promised a prompt reply. An administration official provided the price tag on condition of anonymity.
Marani presented an account of the economic situation in Israel and he and Weisglass had a detailed discussion with Rice, the embassy said in a statement.
A 26-month conflict with the Palestinians has strained Israel's defense budget while the violence has sharply reduced foreign investment and tourism.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. loans and grants, which amount to $2.9 billion.
The State Department said last week it would ask Congress for $2.16 billion in military aid for Israel for fiscal year 2004, which begins next September. That is an increase of $120 million from a request for $2.04 billion for this year.
Israel relies on loan guarantees to borrow at lower interest rates. There is no cost to the United States if the loans are repaid, and Israel never has defaulted on a loan.
``Israel has never defaulted on a loan, or on the interest of a loan,'' Mark Regev, spokesman at the Israeli Embassy, said.
Israel's role, if any, in a U.S. war with Iraq is not clear.
Sharon has said Israel reserves the right to respond if attacked. In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, even while under Iraqi missile fire, Israel complied with U.S. requests and did not respond.
In any event, preparations for a possible war are contributing to Israel's military expenses.
--------
Germany to Give Israel Patriot Missiles
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-Israel-Missiles.html
BERLIN (AP) -- Germany has a ``moral duty'' to protect Israel and will provide Patriot anti-missile systems to help its defense against Iraq if war erupts in the Middle East, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said.
``The security of the state of Israel and its citizens is extraordinarily important to us,'' Schroeder said in an interview Tuesday with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
Earlier, the German Defense Ministry said it was examining an Israeli request to supply Patriot missiles. In Jerusalem, the Israeli defense ministry said it asked Germany for Patriot missiles more than a year ago and renewed the request during talks with the Germans last week.
``If Israel needs an increase in security, we will help -- and on time,'' Schroeder was quoted as saying. ``This is our historic and moral duty.''
The German air force has 30 Patriot missile systems in service. A report Tuesday in the German newspaper Die Welt said Israel is seeking the indefinite loan of an unspecified number of the missiles.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles into Israel. U.S.-provided Patriot missiles largely failed to stop them.
Germany is among some 50 countries discreetly contacted by President Bush to ask what they might contribute to military action against Iraq. Israel's request was separate from the U.S. move, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
Schroeder has recently softened his opposition to a war on Iraq after attempting to patch up relations with Bush at a NATO summit, making plain that Germany would serve as a staging area for U.S. forces in any invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
But he still rules out active German involvement, a stand that helped him win re-election in September and soured ties with the Bush administration.
In Tuesday's interview with Die Zeit, to be published in the newspaper's Thursday edition, Schroeder emphasized that the Patriot missiles were defensive weapons.
German officials often stress that their country feels a special responsibility for Israel because of the Holocaust, an argument cited even by staunch anti-war members of Schroeder's governing center-left coalition.
Winfried Nachtwei, a lawmaker with Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's Greens party, said Monday that ``we certainly could not just stand and watch if there were a danger to Israel's existence'' in a Mideast war.
--------
Rockets, Napalm, Torpedoes & Lies
Israel's Attack on the Liberty, Revisited
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
November 26, 2002
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair1126.html
In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel's attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship.
Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel.
A few hours later more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. As off-duty officers sunbathed on the deck, the fighters opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns.
A few minutes later a second wave of planes streaked overhead, French-built Mystere jets, which not only pelted the ship with gunfire but also with napalm bomblets, coating the deck with the flaming jelly. By now, the Liberty was on fire and dozens were wounded and killed, excluding several of the ship's top officers.
The Liberty's radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes with what one communications specialist called "a buzzsaw sound." Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message it was under attack to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet's large aircraft carrier.
Two F-14 phantoms left the carrier to come to the Liberty's aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return. "Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately," he barked. McNamara's injunction was reiterated in saltier terms by Admiral David L. McDonald, the chief of Naval Operations: "You get those fucking airplanes back on deck, and you get them back down." The planes turned around. And the attack on the Liberty continued.
After the Israeli fighter jets had emptied their arsenal of rockets, three Israeli attack boats approached the Liberty. Two torpedoes were launched at the crippled ship, one tore a 40-foot wide hole in the hull, flooding the lower compartments, and killing more than a dozen American sailors.
As the Liberty listed in the choppy seas, its deck aflame, crew members dropped life rafts into the water and prepared to scuttle the ship. Given the number of wounded, this was going to be a dangerous operation. But it soon proved impossible, as the Israeli attack boats strafed the rafts with machine gun fire. No body was going to get out alive that way.
After more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis finally halted their attack. One of the torpedo boats approached the Liberty. An officer asked in English over a bullhorn: "Do you need any help?"
The wounded commander of the Liberty, Lt. William McGonagle, instructed the quartermaster to respond emphatically: "Fuck you."
The Israeli boat turned and left.
A Soviet destroyer responded before the US Navy, even though a US submarine, on a covert mission, was apparently in the area and had monitored the attack. The Soviet ship reached the Liberty six hours before the USS Davis. The captain of the Soviet ship offered his aid, but the Liberty's conning officer refused.
Finally, 16 hours after the attack two US destroyers reached the Liberty. By that time, 34 US sailors were dead and 174 injured, many seriously. As the wounded were being evacuated, an officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence instructed the men not to talk about their ordeal with the press.
The following morning Israel launched a surprise invasion of Syria, breaching the new cease-fire agreement and seizing control of the Golan Heights.
Within three weeks, the Navy put out a 700-page report, exonerating the Israelis, claiming the attack had been accidental and that the Israelis had pulled back as soon as they realized their mistake. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara suggested the whole affair should be forgotten. "These errors do occur," McNamara concluded.
In Assault on the Liberty, a harrowing first-hand account by James Ennes Jr., McNamara's version of events is proven to be as big a sham as his concurrent lies about Vietnam. Ennes's book created a media storm when it was first published by Random House in 1980, including (predictably) charges that Ennes was a liar and an anti-Semite. Still, the book sold more than 40,000 copies, but was eventually allowed to go out of print. Now Ennes has published an updated version, which incorporates much new evidence that the Israeli attack was deliberate and that the US government went to extraordinary lengths to disguise the truth.
It's a story of Israel aggression, Pentagon incompetence, official lies, and a cover-up that persists to this day. The book gains much of its power from the immediacy of Ennes's first-hand account of the attack and the lies that followed.
Now, 35 years later, Ennes warns that the bloodbath on board the Liberty and its aftermath should serve as a tragic cautionary tale about the continuing ties between the US government and the government of Israel.
The Attack on the Liberty is the kind of book that makes your blood seethe. Ennes skillfully documents the life of the average sailor on one of the more peculiar vessels in the US Navy, with an attention for detail that reminds one of Dana or O'Brien. After all, the year was 1967 and most of the men on the Liberty were certainly glad to be on a non-combat ship in the middle of the Mediterranean, rather than in the Gulf of Tonkin or Mekong Delta.
But this isn't Two Years Before the Mast. In fact, Ennes's tour on the Liberty last only a few short weeks. He had scarcely settled into a routine before his new ship was shattered before his eyes.
Ennes joined the Liberty in May of 1967, as an Electronics Material Officer. Serving on a "spook ship", as the Liberty was known to Navy wives, was supposed to be a sure path to career enhancement. The Liberty's normal routine was to ply the African coast, tuning in its eavesdropping equipment on the electronic traffic in the region.
The Liberty had barely reached Africa when it received a flash message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sail from the Ivory Coast to the Mediterranean, where it was to re-deploy off the coast of the Sinai to monitor the Israeli attack on Egypt and the allied Arab nations.
As the war intensified, the Liberty sent a request to the fleet headquarters requesting an escort. It was denied by Admiral William Martin. The Liberty moved alone to a position in international waters about 13 miles from the shore at El Arish, then under furious siege by the IDF.
On June 6, the Joint Chiefs sent Admiral McCain, father of the senator from Arizona, an urgent message instructing him to move the Liberty out of the war zone to a position at least 100 miles off the Gaza Coast. McCain never forwarded the message to the ship.
A little after seven in the morning on June 8, Ennes entered the bridge of the Liberty to take the morning watch. Ennes was told that an hour earlier a "flying boxcar" (later identified as a twin-engine Nord 2501 Noratlas) had flown over the ship at a low level.
Ennes says he noticed that the ship's American flag had become stained with soot and ordered a new flag run up the mast. The morning was clear and calm, with a light breeze.
At 9 am, Ennes spotted another reconnaissance plane, which circled the Liberty. An hour later two Israeli fighter jets buzzed the ship. Over the next four hours, Israeli planes flew over the Liberty five more times.
When the first fighter jet struck, a little before two in the afternoon, Ennes was scanning the skies from the starboard side of the bridge, binoculars in his hands. A rocket hit the ship just below where Ennes was standing, the fragments shredded the men closest to him.
After the explosion, Ennes noticed that he was the only man left standing. But he also had been hit by more than 20 shards of shrapnel and the force of the blast had shattered his left leg. As he crawled into the pilothouse, a second fighter jet streaked above them and unleashed its payload on the hobbled Liberty.
At that point, Ennes says the crew of the Liberty had no idea who was attacking them or why. For a few moments, they suspected it might be the Soviets, after an officer mistakenly identified the fighters as MIG-15s. They knew that the Egyptian air force already had been decimated by the Israelis. The idea that the Israelis might be attacking them didn't occur to them until one of the crew spotted a Star of David on the wing of one of the French-built Mystere jets.
Ennes was finally taken below deck to a makeshift dressing station, with other wounded men. It was hardly a safe harbor. As Ennes worried that his fractured leg might slice through his femoral artery leaving him to bleed to death, the Liberty was pummeled by rockets, machine-gun fire and an Italian-made torpedo packed with 1,000-pounds of explosive.
After the attack ended, Ennes was approached by his friend Pat O'Malley, a junior officer, who had just sent a list of killed and wounded to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. He got an immediate message back. "They said, 'Wounded in what action? Killed in what action?'," O'Malley told Ennes. "They said it wasn't an 'action,' it was an accident. I'd like for them to come out here and see the difference between an action and an accident. Stupid bastards."
The cover-up had begun.
The Pentagon lied to the public about the attack on the Liberty from the very beginning. In a decision personally approved by the loathsome McNamara, the Pentagon denied to the press that the Liberty was an intelligence ship, referring to it instead as a Technical Research ship, as if it were little more than a military version of Jacques Cousteau's Calypso.
The military press corps on the USS America, where most of the wounded sailors had been taken, were placed under extreme restrictions. All of the stories filed from the carrier were first routed through the Pentagon for security clearance, objectionable material was removed with barely a bleat of protest from the reporters or their publications.
Predictably, Israel's first response was to blame the victim, a tactic that has served them so well in the Palestinian situation. First, the IDF alleged that it had asked the State Department and the Pentagon to identify any US ships in the area and was told that there were none. Then the Israeli government charged that the Liberty failed to fly its flag and didn't respond to calls for it to identify itself. The Israelis contended that they assumed the Liberty was an Egyptian supply ship called El Quseir, which, even though it was a rusting transport ship then docked in Alexandria, the IDF said it suspected of shelling Israeli troops from the sea. Under these circumstances, the Israeli's said they were justified in opening fire on the Liberty. The Israelis said that they halted the attack almost immediately, when they realized their mistake.
"The Liberty contributed decisively toward its identification as an enemy ship," the IDF report concluded. This was a blatant falsehood, since the Israelis had identified the Liberty at least six hours prior to the attack on the ship.
Even though the Pentagon knew better, it gave credence to the Israeli account by saying that perhaps the Liberty's flag had lain limp on the flagpole in a windless sea. The Pentagon also suggested that the attack might have lasted less than 20 minutes.
After the initial battery of misinformation, the Pentagon imposed a news blackout on the Liberty disaster until after the completion of a Court of Inquiry investigation.
The inquiry was headed by Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd. Kidd didn't have a free hand. He'd been instructed by Vice-Admiral McCain to limit the damage to the Pentagon and to protect the reputation of Israel.
The Kidd interviewed the crew on June 14 and 15. The questioning was extremely circumscribed. According to Ennes, the investigators "asked nothing that might be embarrassing to Israeland testimony that tended to embarrass Israel was covered with a 'Top Secret' label, if it was accepted at all."
Ennes notes that even testimony by the Liberty's communications officers about the jamming of the ship's radios was classified as "Top Secret." The reason? It proved that Israel knew it was attacking an American ship. "Here was strong evidence that the attack was planned in advance and that our ship's identity was known to the attackers (for it its practically impossible to jam the radio of a stranger), but this information was hushed up and no conclusions were drawn from it," Ennes writes.
Similarly, the Court of Inquiry deep-sixed testimony and affidavits regarding the flag-Ennes had ordered a crisp new one deployed early on the morning of the attack. The investigators buried intercepts of conversations between IDF pilots identifying the ship as flying an American flag.
It also refused to accept evidence about the IDF's use of napalm during the attacks and choose not to hear testimony regarding the duration of the attacks and the fact that the US Navy failed to send planes to defend the ship.
"No one came to help us," said Dr. Richard F. Kiepfer, the Liberty's physician. "We were promised help, but no help came. The Russians arrived before our own ships did. We asked for an escort before we ever came to the war zone and we were turned down."
None of this made its way into the 700-page Court of Inquiry report, which was completed within a couple of weeks and sent to Admiral McCain in London for review.
McCain approved the report over the objections of Captain Merlin Staring, the Navy legal officer assigned to the inquiry, who found the report to be flawed, incomplete and contrary to the evidence.
Staring sent a letter to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy disavowing himself from the report. The JAG seemed to take Staring's objections to heart. It prepared a summary for the Chief of Naval Operations that almost completely ignored the Kidd/McCain report. Instead, it concluded:
- that the Liberty was easily recognizable as an American naval vessel;
- that it's flag was fully deployed and flying in a moderate breeze;
- that Israeli planes made at least eight reconnaissance flights at close range;
- the ship came under a prolonged attack from Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats.
This succinct and largely accurate report was stamped Top Secret by Navy brass and stayed locked up for many years. But it was seen by many in the Pentagon and some in the Oval Office. But here was enough grumbling about the way the Liberty incident had been handled that LBJ summoned that old Washington fixer Clark Clifford to do damage control. It didn't take Clifford long to come up with the official line: the Israelis simply had made a tragic mistake.
It turns out that the Admiral Kidd and Captain Ward Boston, the two investigating officers who prepared the original report for Admiral McCain, both believed that the Israeli attack was intentional and sustained. In other words, the IDF knew that they were striking an American spy ship and they wanted to sink it and kill as many sailors as possible. Why then did the Navy investigators produce a sham report that concluded it was an accident?
Twenty-five years later we've finally found out. In June of 2002, Captain Boston told the Navy Times: "Officers follow orders."
It gets worse. There's plenty of evidence that US intelligence agencies learned on June 7 that Israel intended to attack the Liberty on the following day and that the strike had been personally ordered by Moshe Dayan.
As the attacks were going on, conversations between Israeli pilots were overheard by US Air Force officers in an EC121 surveillance plane overhead. The spy plane was spotted by Israeli jets, which were given orders to shoot it down. The American plane narrowly avoided the IDF missiles.
Initial reports on the incident prepared by the CIA, Office of Naval Intelligence and the National Security Agency all reached similar conclusions.
A particularly damning report compiled by a CIA informant suggests that Israeli Defense minister Moshe Dayan personally ordered the attack and wanted it to proceed until the Liberty was sunk and all on board killed. A heavily redacted version of the report was released in 1977. It reads in part:
"[The source] said that Dayan personally ordered the attack on the ship and that one of his generals adamantly opposed the action and said, 'This is pure murder.' One of the admirals who was present also disapproved of the action, and it was he who ordered it stopped and not Dayan."
This amazing document generated little attention from the press and Dayan was never publicly questioned about his role in the attack.
The analyses by the intelligence agencies are collected in a 1967 investigation by the Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations. Two and half decades later that report remains classified. Why? A former committee staffer said: "So as not to embarrass Israel."
More proof has recently come to light from the Israeli side. A few years after Attack on the Liberty was originally published, Ennes got a call from Evan Toni, an Israeli pilot. Toni told Ennes that he had just read his book and wanted to tell him his story. Toni said that he was the pilot in the first Israeli Mirage fighter to reach the Liberty. He immediately recognized the ship to be a US Navy vessel. He radioed Israeli air command with this information and asked for instructions. Toni said he was ordered to "attack." He refused and flew back to the air base at Ashdod. When he arrived he was summarily arrested for disobeying orders.
How tightly does the Israeli lobby control the Hill? For the first time in history, an attack on an America ship was not subjected to a public investigation by Congress. In 1980, Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater planned to open a senate hearing into the Liberty affair. Then Jimmy Carter intervened by brokering a deal with Menachem Begin, where Israel agreed to pony up $6 million to pay for damages to the ship. A State Department press release announced the payment said, "The book is now closed on the USS Liberty."
It certainly was the last chapter for Adlai Stevenson. He ran for governor of Illinois the following year, where his less than perfect record on Israel, and his unsettling questions about the Liberty affair, became an issue in the campaign. Big money flowed into the coffers of his Republican opponent, Big Jim Thompson, and Stevenson went down to a narrow defeat.
But the book wasn't closed for the sailors either, of course. After a Newsweek story exposed the gist of what really happened on that day in the Mediterranean, an enraged Admiral McCain placed all the sailors under a gag order. When one sailor told an officer that he was having problems living with the cover-up, he was told: "Forget about it, that's an order."
The Navy went to bizarre lengths to keep the crew of the Liberty from telling what they knew. When gag orders didn't work, they threatened sanctions. Ennes tells of the confinement and interrogation of two Liberty sailors that sounds like something right out of the CIA's MK-Ultra program.
"In an incredible abuse of authority, military officers held two young Liberty sailors against their will in a locked and heavily guarded psychiatric ward of the base hospital," Ennes writes. "For days these men were drugged and questioned about their recollections of the attack by a 'therapist' who admitted to being untrained in either psychiatry or psychology. At one point, they avoided electroshock only by bolting from the room and demanding to see the commanding officer."
Since coming home, the veterans who have tried to tell of their ordeal have been harassed relentlessly. They've been branded as drunks, bigots, liars and frauds. Often, it turns out, these slurs have been leaked by the Pentagon. And, oh yeah, they've also been painted as anti-Semites.
In a recent column, Charley Reese describes just how mean-spirited and petty this campaign became. "When a small town in Wisconsin decided to name its library in honor of the USS Liberty crewmen, a campaign claiming it was anti-Semitic was launched," writes Reese. "And when the town went ahead, the U.S. government ordered no Navy personnel to attend, and sent no messages. This little library was the first, and at the time the only, memorial to the men who died on the Liberty."
So why then did the Israelis attack the Liberty?
A few days before the Six Days War, Israel's Foreign Minister Abba Eban visited Washington to inform LBJ about the forthcoming invasion. Johnson cautioned Eban that the US could not support such an attack.
It's possible, then, that the IDF assumed that the Liberty was spying on the Israeli war plans. Possible, but not likely. Despite the official denials, as Andrew and Leslie Cockburn demonstrate in Dangerous Liaison, at the time of the Six Days War the US and Israel had developed a warm covert relationship. So closely were the two sides working that US intelligence aid certainly helped secure Israel's devastating and swift victory. In fact, it's possible that the Liberty had been sent to the region to spy for the IDF.
A somewhat more likely scenario holds that Moshe Dayan wanted to keep the lid on Israel's plan to breach the new cease-fire and invade into Syria to seize the Golan.
It has also been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians and thus swinging public and political opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis. Of course, for this plan to work, the Liberty had to be destroyed and its crew killed.
There's another factor. The Liberty was positioned just off the coast from the town of El Arish. In fact, Ennes and others had used town's mosque tower to fix the location of the ship along the otherwise featureless desert shoreline. The IDF had seized El Arish and had used the airport there as a prisoner of war camp. On the very day the Liberty was attacked, the IDF was in the process of executing as many as 1,000 Palestinian and Egyptian POWs, a war crime that they surely wanted to conceal from prying eyes. According to Gabriel Bron, now an Israeli reporter, who witnessed part of the massacre as a soldier: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death."
The bigger question is why the US government would participate so enthusiastically in the cover-up of a war crime against its own sailors. Well, the Pentagon has never been slow to hide its own incompetence. And there's plenty of that in the Liberty affair: bungled communications, refusal to provide an escort, situating the defenseless Liberty too close to a raging battle, the inability to intervene in the attack and the inexcusably long time it took to reach the battered ship and its wounded.
That's but par for the course. But something else was going on that would only come to light later. Through most of the 1960s, the US congress had imposed a ban on the sale of arms to both Israel and Jordan. But at the time of the Liberty attack, the Pentagon (and its allies in the White House and on the Hill) was seeking to have this proscription overturned. The top brass certainly knew that any evidence of a deliberate attack on a US Navy ship by the IDF would scuttle their plans. So they hushed it up.
In January 1968, the arms embargo on Israel was lifted and the sale of American weapons began to flow. By 1971, Israel was buying $600 million of American-made weapons a year. Two years later the purchases topped $3 billion. Almost overnight, Israel had become the largest buyer of US-made arms and aircraft.
Perversely, then, the IDF's strike on the Liberty served to weld the US and Israel together, in a kind of political and military embrace. Now, every time the IDF attacks defenseless villages in Gaza and the West Bank with F-16s and Apache helicopters, the Palestinians quite rightly see the bloody assaults as a joint operation, with the Pentagon as a hidden partner.
Thus, does the legacy of Liberty live on, one raid after another.
-------- us
Unmanned Predators Now Living Up to Name
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Killer-Predator.html
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The unmanned Predator aircraft is living up to its name as it evolves from an unarmed spy plane to a remote-controlled killer firing anti-tank missiles.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. is shipping the Pentagon and the CIA a few dozen Predators -- all configured to launch Hellfire air-to-ground missiles.
The San Diego firm is also testing a next-generation Predator that can fly higher longer, faster and carry more weapons.
Predators, which can loiter surreptitiously over a battlefield, have been used to kill terror suspects in Afghanistan and Yemen. Earlier this month, a CIA-controlled Predator fired a Hellfire missile which slammed into a car in Yemen, killing six suspected al-Qaida members.
The sleek, 27-foot-long drones have also begun patrolling Iraq's southern no-fly zone within the past month, and have fired missiles against Iraqi mobile defense radars, according to Jane's Defence Weekly. Talks are underway to use the Predator to monitor suspected weapons sites in Iraq.
The Bush administration has ordered an additional 22 Predators and their associated ground stations at total a cost of about $160 million. Air Force squadrons based at Indian Springs, Nev., received about 20 of them and the CIA bought an undisclosed number.
``The word out there is it's extremely effective and very helpful to the commanders,'' Lt. Wes Ticer of the Air Force's Air Combat Command in Virginia.
A spokesman for General Atomics Aeronautical Systems declined to comment, referring all calls to the Air Force.
A Predator leaving Washington, D.C., can fly to Boston and lurk at 25,000 feet, transmitting live video and infrared images anywhere in the world for up to 22 hours. The military has lately begun piping video from Predators directly into AC-130 gunships that can then direct withering fire at targets.
``There are very few sensors that can stand over a battlefield and stare down on it the way a Predator can,'' said Bob Martinage, defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
For an aircraft that came into being as a non-lethal spy plane, the Predator has undergone an unusually rapid transformation.
A year after its first test flight in 1994 -- before it had even finished its development phase -- the Predator was flying over Bosnia, providing real-time intelligence to U.S., United Nations and NATO forces.
In 2001, a modified Predator successfully test-fired a Hellfire missile. By the end of the year, the drones were firing missiles at cave complexes in Afghanistan. One of those attacks, a November operation that also included strikes by U.S. military aircraft, killed al-Qaida military head Mohammed Atef.
The military and Boeing Co. are developing the first unpiloted plane to be developed specifically to carry weapons into combat. The X-45, successfully tested at Edwards Air Force Base earlier this year, is scheduled to be deployed in 2008.
``The Predator, I think you can view it as a stepping stone to a future battlefield where unmanned systems figure more and more,'' Martinage said.
On the Net:
Air Force Predator fact sheet:
http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/RQ--1--Predator--Unmanned--Aerial.html
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems:
http://www.gat.com/asi/aero.html
-------- propaganda wars
Putin Vetoes Curb on News of Terrorism
November 26, 2002
New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/international/europe/26RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Nov. 25 - President Vladimir V. Putin vetoed legislation today that would have sharply restricted news media coverage of security operations against terrorist acts like Chechen guerrillas' 57-hour siege of a theater here last month.
The legislation, which Parliament adopted overwhelmingly after the siege, was widely criticized here and abroad as an overly broad attack on press freedoms. Critics warned that it would be used not only to restrict coverage of operations against terrorists, but also to censor reporting of the war in Chechnya. Russian officials routinely describe that conflict as a "counterterrorism" operation.
Mr. Putin, whose aides have sharply criticized local and foreign coverage of the siege, announced his veto today at a meeting in the Kremlin with executives of the country's leading newspapers and television and radio stations. The executives, including those from state-controlled news organizations, made an unusual public appeal to Mr. Putin last week to veto the legislation.
Mr. Putin said the legislation had gone too far in restricting coverage, even as he again strongly rebuked some news organizations for reporting that he characterized as sensational and potentially dangerous.
"It is important that a balance be found between restrictions and informing society on the state's activities, so that the state should not regard itself as infallible," Mr. Putin said at the meeting.
The legislation would have forbidden the publication or broadcasting of terrorists' statements, as well as operations of security forces during terrorist acts. It would have also prohibited statements that could be construed by officials as justifying terrorist activities.
Had the law been in effect during the siege, critics warned, it could have restricted coverage of the guerrillas' demands, as well as the daring, but deadly commando raid. The toll from the siege continues to increase. Officials now say 129 hostages died in the rescue, most from the effects of a debilitating gas that the commandos used to subdue the guerrillas.
In addition to complaints from Russian journalists, the legislation drew rebukes from the United States and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. Despite his veto, Mr. Putin left open the possibility of a revised law, sending the legislation back to Parliament for revisions.
After the theater siege, several news organizations have reported harassment from the authorities. The Press Ministry complained to a radio station, Ekho Moskvy, after its Web site published an interview with a guerrilla. The government also blocked the signal of an independent television station, TVTs, while the police raided a weekly newspaper, Versiya.
Today, Mr. Putin singled out the coverage of one television station, saying it had broadcast commandos' movements moments before they stormed the theater. The broadcast, he said, "could have led to a terrible tragedy."
Although Mr. Putin did not name the station, the Kremlin has criticized NTV for its coverage that morning. The state-controlled energy company, Gazprom, took over the network last year in what was seen as a government effort to limit independent media outlets. But NTV continues to provide fairly critical coverage of the government.
Mr. Putin warned that journalists should exercise restraint and not exploit terrorism to enhance ratings.
"The main weapon of terrorists is not bullets, machine guns or grenades," he said. "It's the blackmail of citizens and the state, and the best means of such blackmail is to turn a terrorist act into a public show."
--------
Critics Say Government Deleted Web Site Material to Push Abstinence
November 26, 2002
New York Times
By ADAM CLYMER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/national/26ABST.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - Information on condom use, the relation between abortion and breast cancer and ways to reduce sex among teenagers has been removed from government Web sites, prompting critics to accuse the Department of Health and Human Services of censoring medical information in order to promote a philosophy of sexual abstinence.
Over the last year, the department has quietly expunged information on how using condoms protects against AIDS, how abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer and how to run programs proven to reduce teenage sexual activity. The posting that found no link between abortion and breast cancer was removed from the department's Web site last June, after Representative Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, wrote a letter of protest to Secretary Tommy Thompson calling the research cited by the National Cancer Institute "scientifically inaccurate and misleading to the public."
The removal of the information has set off protests from other members of Congress, mainly Democrats, and has prompted a number of liberal health advocacy groups to accuse the department of bowing to pressure from social conservatives.
The controversy began drawing attention late last month, when Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat, and other members of Congress wrote to Mr. Thompson protesting the removal of the material. Bill Pierce, the department's deputy assistant secretary for media affairs, said that in all three cases the removals were made so that material could be rewritten with newer scientific information. He also said the decisions to remove material had been made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the National Institutes of Health without any urging from the department's headquarters.
But in one case - the removal of information about condoms from a C.D.C. Web site - he was contradicting a C.D.C. official. That official, Dr. Ron Valdiserri, deputy director of the center's program for H.I.V., S.T.D. and TB Prevention, said on Oct. 31, when questioned about the removal of Web site information at a news briefing on syphilis trends, that it was a joint C.D.C.-Health and Human Services decision. Asked about the contradiction, Mr. Pierce said it was a C.D.C. "decision to do it."
The department has previously been accused of subverting science to politics by purging advisory committees and choosing scientific experts with views on occupational health favorable to industry.
In an interview, Mr. Waxman said: "We're concerned that their decisions are being driven by ideology and not science, particularly those who want to stop sex education. It appears that those who want to urge abstinence-only as a policy, whether it's effective or not, don't want to suggest that other programs work, too."
One Republican congressman, Representative James C. Greenwood of Pennsylvania, joined Mr. Waxman and 10 other Democrats, in writing Secretary Thompson on July 9 to complain about the deletion of the breast cancer report. Mr. Greenwood had no comment today.
Mr. Smith, who asked that the breast cancer report be expunged, could not be reached. In his letter, which was signed by 27 of his colleagues in the House, objections to the study were termed scientific, not political. Their letter contended that the large majority of studies showed a relationship between abortion and breast cancer, and argued that the study relied on by the National Cancer Institute "contains many significant flaws."
The deletions have caused anger among some health activists. Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, had a sharp criticism of H.H.S. She said: "They are gagging scientists and doctors. They are censoring medical and scientific facts. It's ideology and not medicine. The consequences to the health and well-being of American citizens are secondary to this administration."
James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a public health organization dealing with adolescent sexual health, objected to the removal of information on programs aimed at reducing sexual activity among teenagers, which was contained on the Web site of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, saying that there "seems to be a concerted effort to censor science and research that supports contraception in favor of `abstinence-only until marriage' programs."
Terje Anderson of the National Association of People with AIDS, speaking of the deleted condom information, which was removed from the National Center for H.I.V., S.T.D. and TB Prevention Web site on July 23, 2001, said, "Something doesn't need to disappear for a year and a half to be updated."
The Web site said, in part: "Studies have shown that latex condoms are highly effective in preventing H.I.V. transmission."
Kitty Bina, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C. in Atlanta, said the revised version, which would explain that condoms did not always provide protection from other sexually transmitted diseases, had been sent to department headquarters for review.
The National Cancer Institute's removed document, "Abortion and Breast Cancer," said: "The current body of scientific evidence suggests that women who have had either induced or spontaneous abortion have the same risk as other women for developing breast cancer."
Dorie Hightower, a press officer at the National Cancer Institute, said: "We regularly review our fact sheets. We regularly update them for accuracy and scientific relevance. This was taken off the Web to review it for accuracy in July." She said that the review was to see if there had been other scientific studies. "There is supposed to be an interim statement that is going to be posted shortly," she said.
The C.D.C. Web site had also published information about intervention programs designed to discourage teenage sexual activity. Some mentioned abstinence, one mentioned condoms. Katharine Harvin, speaking for the C.D.C. in Atlanta, said the information was removed in June because some "communities and schools did not adopt packaged interventions, because some parts were disliked, or parts were liked and disliked."
--------
Iraq Inspectors Don't Want Journalists
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Journalists-Role.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The inspectors don't want journalists at their elbows. The Iraqis say they'll give them free rein. With their cameras and instant analysis, international journalists have become an early point of contention in the tense showdown over Iraq.
When the two leaders of the inspection program -- Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei -- met with Iraqi officials last week, they made clear that they did not want journalists tagging along with inspectors -- especially at suspected weapons sites.
``We don't want journalists to be with us in the facilities,'' said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``We believe we can't carry out our professional job'' with journalists in tow.
But Iraq, which maintains one of the most restrictive press policies in the Mideast, is now championing free access for journalists -- at least as far as covering the inspections is concerned. Iraqi officials say they want maximum media coverage to prove to the world that they don't have weapons of mass destruction, despite Washington's claims to the contrary.
``We will allow everybody to follow in order that international public opinion be acquainted with what is going on in our country and from our point of view, the press will be granted full access to every single site,'' an Iraqi official said on condition of anonymity. ``Taking into consideration the transparency of our position, we are not hiding anything. Every journalist is allowed.''
U.N. officials appeared concerned that reporters, lacking the inspectors' technical and scientific expertise, might be too quick to report that no banned materials had been found before the experts had time to draw their own conclusions.
Apparently realizing the impossibility of excluding the media entirely, the U.N. team proposed that a limited number of journalists representing print, photos and television be allowed to go along on the first inspection Wednesday. The U.N. team proposed that it organize and manage the media pool.
The Iraqis, however, insisted it was their country and they would be responsible for media arrangements. On Tuesday, the Information Ministry told each news organization that it would be permitted to send at least two representatives along with the inspectors.
It was unclear, however, how the arrangement would work and whether journalists would be permitted to enter the sites. Senior inspector Dimitriou Perricos told reporters Tuesday that journalists could accompany the teams to the site but must stay outside.
``We have lots of work to do,'' Perricos said. ``We want to be friends.''
The U.N. team is clearly reluctant to have journalists reporting what the inspectors have or have not found, especially since those findings may not be clear to the professionals themselves without lengthy analysis of data.
Blix told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that he had advised the Iraqis that inspections were ``serious business'' and ``could not be allowed to turn into some circus.''
``We want to be the ones who draw the conclusions about what we see,'' Fleming said. ``We are the experts. Our nuclear inspectors know what given `dual use' items might mean, whereas a journalist doesn't. So we don't think it will be helpful at all to have the media with us during inspection. We hope to be as forthcoming as we can, after an inspection to provide a certain amount of information.''
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Embracing Big Brother
By William Raspberry,
Monday, November 25, 2002
Washington Post; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34771-2002Nov24?language=printer
An article in last Tuesday's Wall Street Journal is the perfect point of departure for thinking about "homeland security'' -- both the vast new department and the legislative initiatives that are supposed to protect us from terrorism.
The story, in a nutshell, is that the FBI assembled a lookout list of hundreds of people the agency wanted to talk to. It then circulated the list to big banks, travel and car-rental agencies -- even to Las Vegas casino operators.
Two things happened, according to the FBI. First, the effort helped the agency locate some people with information of possible relevance to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Second, the FBI has "lost control of that list," which, however, is still circulating.
One version showed up on a South American security-related Web site under the heading "List of Suspected Terrorists Sent by the FBI to Financial Institutions." An unknown number of innocent people have found themselves labeled as terrorists and, if not kept off planes entirely, at least subjected to long delays and other inconveniences.
But we seem to be going along blithely with such efforts. I can't tell you how often I've heard some version of: If you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't care that the government is watching your mail, monitoring your phone calls, clawing through your financial records or reading your e-mail. That nonchalance is especially commonplace as America continues to do battle against international terrorism. The response, in effect, is that terrorism is such a threat that it's worth giving up all we hold dear in order to oppose it.
Nor is privacy the only thing Americans seem prepared to sacrifice. There has been astonishingly little response to the government's continuing classification of people thought to have ties to al Qaeda so that they have neither recourse to the U.S. court system nor the protection of the Geneva Conventions for prisoners of war. We just hold them till we get tired of holding them, with no need for public justification.
There's been hardly a peep about the new rules that allow private elements of America's "critical infrastructure'' -- utilities, for instance -- an exemption from the normal workings of the Freedom of Information Act. The way the law is written seems to put someone who blows the whistle on illegal activity in the company in danger of criminal prosecution.
Closer to home, even the media haven't made much noise about elements of the new legislation that seem (to me, at least) to put journalists in the position of serving as government agents. It's one thing to believe, as I do, that most American journalists would (and should) volunteer information on activities that seemed to put their country in jeopardy. It's quite another to be told by the government: You must tell us whom you talked to and what you found out so we can decide the question of jeopardy.
There's not much question that the more the government can find out about what all of us are doing, the more likely it will be able to catch prospective and actual terrorists. In similar fashion, the more speed-recording cameras the police can install and the more private workers they are willing to cut in for a piece of the fines they collect, the more speeders and other miscreants they are likely to bring to heel. I still don't like it -- and not solely because of the almost limitless potential for abuse.
Too much of what the government is getting in this new dispensation is stuff that Attorney General John Ashcroft and others wanted long before Sept. 11, 2001 -- for instance the right of the FBI to get a warrant to search your home, even in your absence, go through your things and download the contents of your computer.
Congress twice denied the request for such authority. Now it has granted it. The war on terror, you know.
But as President Bush himself told us, the war on terror is a long-term affair, with no end in sight. What's to keep the same thing from being true of the recently granted "exceptions" to our personal liberties? And why do we seem not to care?
----
Homeland Security Moves to Begin March 1
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer
Nov 26, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_HOMELAND_SECURITY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
Attacks-Glance: President Bush signs the homeland security bill. http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/files/photos/JSA105112515.html?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The long-sought Department of Homeland Security will begin taking shape March 1 when the Secret Service, Customs Service and several huge agencies will be folded into the massive new department.
It will be fully operational by Sept. 30, 2003 - more than two years after the attacks that prompted the overhaul. Critics warn there will be problems along the way.
"The threat of mass murder on our own soil will be met with a unified, effective response," President Bush said Monday as he signed a bill creating the new 170,000-person agency.
Bush chose longtime political ally Tom Ridge and two high-powered deputies to lead the new Department of Homeland Security and mount a "united, effective response" against terrorism on U.S. soil.
Within hours of signing the department into law Monday, Bush asked the Senate to approve his hand-picked leadership team and submitted his transition blueprint to Congress. That started a 90-day clock ticking after which agencies may begin moving to the new department.
The plan calls for a large portion of the department to take shape March 1, when the Secret Service, Coast Guard, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and a few other agencies fold their employees and budgets into the new Cabinet entity.
Other changes will continue in phases even as the new agency searches for permanent housing, according to an outline of the shift distributed by the White House. According to the months-in-the-making plan, the final pieces will be in place by Sept. 30, 2003, more than two years after the attacks that prompted the overhaul and ahead of the year-plus transition process predicted earlier Monday by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
But even as Bush lauded the biggest government shake-up in more than a half-century as "historic action to defend the United States," he offered a sobering assessment of the terrorist threat.
"In a free and open society, no department of government can completely guarantee our safety against ruthless killers who move and plot in shadows," the president said at an overflow East Room ceremony.
For Ridge's deputy, Bush is nominating Navy Secretary Gordon England, a former General Dynamics Corp. vice president. Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and a former GOP congressman from Arkansas, is Bush's pick for undersecretary of border and transportation security.
Bush initially opposed creation of a Homeland Security Department. Facing criticism from Democrats, he embraced the concept in June and used it as a political issue in the midterm election campaign.
In the 57-year-old Ridge, Bush picked a Vietnam hero, 12-year congressional veteran and longtime political ally of the Bush family who was on the president's short list of potential running mates in 2000.
Raised in blue-collar Erie, Pa., Ridge worked summers as a union laborer and went to Harvard University.
Nearly 14 months ago, he left his position as Pennsylvania governor to serve in the White House and has won praise as the president's homeland security adviser for improving communication between Washington and local governments.
His most visible creation - the color-coded national warning system - became an instant butt of jokes but has helped Americans understand the ebbs and flows in terrorism threats, even if they're still unsure what, if anything, to do about the dangers.
No one else was seriously considered for the top job at the new department, Bush aides said.
The centrist views that made a vice presidential nomination untenable to conservatives in 2000 - Ridge supports abortion rights - could help him in his new post. His record of accommodating unions could help heal a rift between the White House and labor groups representing federal employees that oppose a provision allowing Bush to waive collective bargaining rules in the new department.
"He treated us with decency and dignity and respect, and was more than fair to state employees at the collective bargaining table," said Ed Keller of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13, the largest public employees union in Pennsylvania.
Creating the department will involve merging $40 billion in budgets from a broad swath of well-protected bureaucratic turf. Critics warn that problems are sure to crop up.
Dwight Ink, a former Office of Management and Budget and General Services official, said: "I wouldn't expect all the warts to be worked out in the first year."
Ridge was more optimistic.
"Hopefully from day one we'll see tangible results," he said on CNN. "I understand that blending 22 departments and agencies and 170,000 people is going to be a very complicated, time-consuming task."
On the Net:
White House site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/
----
Cops Sued Over Homeless
Lawsuit alleges NYPD increased arrests instead of services
By Pete Bowles STAFF WRITER
November 26, 2002
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyhome263020163nov26,0,2516916.story?coll=ny-nynews-reddots-headlines
A police initiative that has resulted in the arrests of homeless people was described in a federal lawsuit yesterday as "a heartless attack" against those living on the street and a violation of their Constitutional rights.
Advocates for the homeless, in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, contend that a change in city policy resulted in the arrests of 272 homeless people from Oct. 26 to Nov. 21, a sharp increase over previous months.
The suit contends the mission of the Police Department's homeless outreach unit has been changed from offering services to the homeless and directing them to shelters, to arresting them.
"As a result, homeless people routinely are 'put through the system,' which often results in their being held in jail overnight," the suit contends. "Moreover, the arrest of homeless persons often results in their property being lost or destroyed."
But Gail Donoghue, a special assistant to the city's Corporation Counsel, denied any change in city policy.
"The mission of the Homeless Outreach Unit has not changed," she said. "The mission continues to be the offering of services to assist the homeless in finding shelter and safety while at the same time maintaining the quality of life in New York City."
The suit, filed by Picture the Homeless Inc., an organization comprised of homeless and formerly homeless people, also alleges that the 80 police officers in the Homeless Outreach Unit have been threatened with transfers to less desirable commands if they do not arrest the homeless.
The suit, prepared by the New York Civil Liberties Union, asks that the court direct the NYPD to stop singling out the homeless for arrest.
-------- drug war
[To reply - mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com]
Trading drugs
EDITORIAL •
November 26, 2002
WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021126-604726.htm
"We're not making a lot of progress," a U.S. trade official told us yesterday regarding efforts in Geneva to launch a new round of world trade talks. "There seems to be a fair amount of give and take: People give something and then they take it back."
At issue are intellectual property rights - the laws that protect innovators and inventors from having their work pirated. Last November, trade negotiators agreed to provisions that grant the poorest countries the ability to purchase cheaper generic drugs to treat rampant diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Now, there's a much-needed move to clarify some of these exemptions, but left-wing activists and the generic drug industry have combined to aggressively expand them. Thanks to some pliant trade ministers, draft language currently circulating contains legal holes that would allow virtually any country to declare any ailment a "public health problem." Indeed, in August, Egypt did just that with erectile dysfunction. Now, 12 companies produce knock-off Viagra at knock-off prices to combat this so-called crisis.
Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical industry would like some strong language that limits the patent waivers to their original intention. But so far, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has hit a dead end, and the fear is that he may cede ground.
The temptation to do so is strong. The World Trade Organization is a house of many mansions, and bad blood spills throughout. If a solution to the patent problem isn't reached, efforts to cement other trade deals could be at risk. In addition to a new round of world trade talks, Mr. Zoellick's hope to gain bilateral trade agreements with other partners could be dashed. Many of those partners, such as Singapore and the Americas, stand to benefit greatly from looser patent protections in the drug industry. Their willingness to cut deals later on hinges on how well they are humored, and Mr. Zoellick may feel that the only way to pave the way for future progress is by appeasement now.
Of course, opening markets is an important and worthy goal. Greater competition drives greater innovation, and that benefits everyone. However, free trade's success isn't measured by how many agreements are signed, but on how the world marketplace is best served.
That's where the unlikely alliance of anti-capitalist fringe groups and aggressively capitalist generics companies falls short. All the wonder drugs out there now are made possible because of intellectual property protections, not in spite of them. After all, it isn't governments (much less generics) that develop these treatments. Terry Barnett, president of pharmaceutical company Novartis' American operations, didn't mince words in his prediction. Soft patent protections "would threaten the innovative capacity of the industry," he told us.
The victims would not just be the pharmaceutical CEOs, but everyone everywhere. Profits are just the seed capital that goes into finding new cures. Only three of every 10 new medicines that go on the market break even - and only two of those actually make money. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars in research and development that lead to dead ends.
Indeed, pharmaceutical companies do more to help the world, rich and poor, than left-wing agitators and drug pirates. In standing firm for patent protections on drugs, Mr. Zoellick can protect not only an American industry's interests, but the world's interests, too.
-------- homeland security
Navy Secretary Is Nominated for No. 2 Post
November 26, 2002
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/politics/26ENGL.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - In announcing his choice of Gordon R. England to be No. 2 at the new Department of Homeland Security, President Bush picked a man today with one leg in the corporate world and the other in national security affairs.
Mr. England, 65, has served since May 2001 as secretary of the Navy. From 1997 to 2001 he was executive vice president of General Dynamics.
A native of Baltimore, Mr. England earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland in 1961 and a master's degree in business administration from Texas Christian University in 1975.
Mr. England has also served as a member of the Defense Science Board, a panel that advises the secretary of defense on numerous issues, especially technology.
His civic and charitable work includes serving as vice chairman of the board of Goodwill Industries International and on the U.S.O. board of governors.
At General Dynamics, he was responsible for information systems and international business. His official Navy biography also lists corporate positions as executive vice president of the Combat Systems Group, president of General Dynamics Land Systems and president of General Dynamics Fort Worth aircraft company.
Pentagon officials who have watched Mr. England's tenure as Navy secretary said he impressed the service's sailors and flight crews with his knowledge of military affairs without ever posing as a warrior.
Working with Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, and Gen. James L. Jones, commandant of the Marines, he was able to lobby for the programs of the Navy and Marines with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the rest of the executive branch and on Capitol Hill, officials said.
"It was a persuasive team in making the case for their programs, making their arguments fit the priorities that Rumsfeld had set, and also to meet the priorities of Congress," one senior military official said.
Mr. England's nomination now goes to the Senate for confirmation.
-------- terrorism
Analysis: Al Qaida chief in U.S. custody
By Richard Sale
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
November 26, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20021125-100548-6887r.htm
The recent arrest of a top Al Qaida field operations commander, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, ends the career of a specialist in plotting attacks at sea and a 15-year associate of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, according to administration officials. Top Stories
One U.S. government analyst said al Nashiri, in his 30s, a Yemeni born in Saudi Arabia, has been "the directing mind" for al Qaida operations in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. He has also been active in operations against U.S. targets in Southeast and Southwest Asia, said this official, who asked not to be identified.
According to a former senior CIA official, al Nashiri was also the master plotter of the Oct. 6 bombing of the oil tanker Limburg and the October 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors and injured 39 others.
Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaida," said al Nashiri was involved in a plot two years ago to bomb U.S. embassies in Yemen, Bangladesh and India, foiled when two accomplices were arrested along with 100 pounds of high-explosive.
A longtime U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be identified, said al Nashiri is believed to have been plotting additional strikes against U.S. warships and other craft transiting the Suez Canal or operating in the Red Sea.
Al Nashiri was "very intent on causing economic damage" not only to the United States but to "Western targets in general," focusing on oil tankers traveling the region, this official said.
Al Nashiri was also involved in plotting against targets in Malaysia, and may have been on a mission when arrested while at an airport en route to Malaysia about 10 days ago, he said.
Al Nashiri is in CIA custody and being interrogated by the CIA at a "secret site in a foreign country." The official refused to elaborate but confirmed that U.S. intelligence specialists are closely examining the hard drive of al Nashiri's computer. Former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro told United Press International that the interrogation of al Nashiri has already produced a spate of terror alerts against U.S. targets such navy ports, facilities and warships in the region.
Former CIA counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson said Malaysia acted as an alternative planning base for last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
On Wednesday, the State Department specifically mentioned Malaysia as a country where Americans and foreigners could face risk of attack by the Jemaat Islamiyah terror network, whose leaders were trained in Afghanistan by bin Laden.
But al Nashiri's main efforts appear to have been directed at naval targets. In addition to being the plotter and explosive specialist in the USS Cole attack, al Nashiri is alleged to have plotted to sink the USS Sullivans in Aden the same year, and this year was involved in a scheme to sink U.S. and British warships in the Straits of Gibraltar -- a plot broken up in Morocco, U.S. officials said.
He was also involved in an earlier plot to blow up U.S. navy warships in Bahrain, U.S. officials said.
Gunaratna told United Press International that al Nashiri had been trained by bin Laden's master bomber, Abu Khebab, in Afghanistan at the Derunta camp near Jalabad.
According to federal law-enforcement officials, al Nashiri is considered the most senior al Qaida operative to be captured since the arrest of Abu Zubayda, al Qaida's operations chief in Pakistan last March.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Alternative Energy Poll
ENN,
November 26, 2002 (and ongoing)
http://enn.com/indepth/energy/index.asp
Fossil fuels are depleted 100,000 times faster than they are formed. World energy consumption is expected to increase 40 to 50 percent by the year 2010, while the global mix of fuels - renewables (18 percent), nuclear (4 percent) and fossil (78 percent) - is projected to remain substantially the same as today. Where do we go from here?
ENN Poll
Which renewable energy source has the greatest potential? Hydro Wind Geothermal Other
-------- energy
California ethanol switch to boost gas prices, refiner profits
Story by Erwin Seba
REUTERS USA:
November 26, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18769/story.htm
HOUSTON - California's switch to ethanol as a pollution-reducing gasoline additive will likely mean bad news at the pumps for motorists but better profits for the state's oil refiners, analysts say.
"It has the potential to be a mess," said Bryan Caviness, of Fitch Ratings.
"This is going to have the same effect on supply as removing an entire refinery from California," said one gasoline dealer. "That will have the effect of boosting prices and creating excellent refining profit margins."
California decided to switch to ethanol from another gasoline additive, MTBE, due to evidence MTBE is contaminating ground water, largely by leaking from underground fuel tanks.
Both MTBE and ethanol are oxygenates designed to reduce tailpipe emissions by making gasoline burn hotter. The federal government mandates the inclusion of an oxygenate in gasoline - creating "reformulated" grades - at roughly a third of the nation's pumps to combat urban smog.
The switch to ethanol in California, mandated by 2004, is already underway, with refiners planning to add it to their gasoline a year early to reduce pollution.
In order to reach the federal oxygenate standard, gasoline producers will use a blend of roughly 5.8 percent ethanol, compared with the 11 percent blend of MTBE currently used. The shift will remove more than 5 percent from the California gasoline pool.
"The MTBE phase-out could mean the gasoline supply is short 5 to 10 percent," Stillwater Associates President David Hackett told Reuters. "There could be significant shortfalls."
The switch could lead to gasoline prices of $2 to $3 a gallon, Stillwater said in a report. In unusual situations, that price could spike to $4 a gallon.
Gasoline supplies on the West Coast are already running 3.3 million barrels, or 10 percent, below last year's levels, according to federal figures. Analysts expect the shortfall to become more acute next spring in the run-up to peak summer vacation needs.
PRICES ALREADY UP
California drivers currently pay $1.63 for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel, about 25 cents, or 18 percent, higher than the same time last year.
Higher prices for crude oil are partly to blame for the increase in pump prices, as possible war in Iraq threatens supplies from the oil-rich Middle East.
California motorists have long paid more than drivers in other states, since the state is isolated from the rest of the U.S. supply system and tough state environmental regulations make California's gasoline hard to process.
"It's going to be an interesting brand of gasoline that no one else makes anywhere in the world," Hackett said of the ethanol-blended grade.
California refiners, who produce about 1 million barrels of gasoline per day, are expected to enjoy improved profit margins in the event of a supply shortfall, much like oil firms in the Midwest did during the summer supply crunch of 2000.
Originally, the switch to ethanol was to be completed by Dec. 31 of this year. But in March, California Gov. Gray Davis ordered the switch moved back to Dec. 31, 2003, due to concerns about the effect of the transition on the market.
Even so, ConocoPhillips is already producing and selling the ethanol-blend gasoline in California. Oil majors Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Plc , and Exxon Mobil Corp. will make the switch at the start of next year.
Refiners' profit margins in California have doubled in the last month to more than $8 for every barrel of oil processed. Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Petroleum Corp. will continue with MTBE through 2003.
Even though the ethanol-blend gasoline required in California will not be made anywhere else, the gasoline blendstock - known as CARBOB, for California Air Resources Board Oxygenated Blendstock - can be imported and blended with ethanol in the state.
The ethanol, for the most part, will be shipped in from the Midwest corn belt or big refining centers in Texas and Louisiana, Fitch's Caviness said.
By contrast, most MTBE used in California is produced within the state.
-------
U.S. Fails to Curb Its Saudi Oil Habit, Experts Say
November 26, 2002
New York Times
By JEFF GERTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/international/middleeast/26OIL.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - Nearly a dozen years after the Persian Gulf war, when reliance on Saudi supplies prompted calls for the United States to diversify its sources of oil, America remains as dependent as ever on the Saudis, according to government and industry officials.
The Saudis supply about one-sixth of United States oil imports. But what gives Saudi Arabia its considerable political strength is its role as the only producer with the spare capacity to replace millions of barrels a day of lost oil. That amount could be drained from the market temporarily by an attack on Iraq, according to the administration's internal assessments as well as outside experts.
"The Saudis have by far the largest amount of unused capacity," Guy Caruso, the head of the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States have been strained since the participation of several Saudis in the Sept. 11 attacks last year prompted close scrutiny of the country's role in financing and otherwise supporting Islamic radicalism. But the Bush Administration's strategic options are clearly limited by American dependence on Saudi oil.
Saudi Arabia is now producing about eight million barrels a day, oil executives say. Saudi officials have said publicly that they could raise their output to 10 million barrels a day fairly quickly and to 10.5 million within three months. Most experts, as well as the Bush administration, accept the Saudi assurances.
If a war halts Iraq's oil exports - estimated at 1.5 million to 2 million barrels a day - the situation will be manageable, Mr. Caruso said. But it would be harder to replace a steeper decline in exports, which could occur if oil supplies from other Persian Gulf producers were reduced by terrorist attacks or by prohibitive insurance premiums on oil tankers.
In an interview, Mr. Caruso said the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve and stocks in other countries represented the other best defense against short-term disruptions.
Established in the 1970's as a response to an oil embargo by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is based in Kuwait, the reserve now holds a record 592 million barrels, part of a Bush administration plan to reach 700 million barrels by 2005.
But because of increased American dependence on imported oil, the length of time the reserve can compensate for lost imports has declined from a high of 118 days in 1985 to 51 days at the end of last year. Some oil experts advocate increasing the reserve to one billion barrels.
Alan Larson, under secretary of state for economic affairs, went to Saudi Arabia last month to secure assurances that Riyadh would pump extra oil if it were needed, American and Saudi oil executives say.
Last month Mr. Caruso's office helped prepare an "oil market contingency planning" book, based entirely on public data. The Energy Department has restricted the book's distribution to keep it from Congress and the public, according to government officials.
In an interview last month, Mr. Caruso cited a small portion of the book's contents to illustrate the unique role of Saudi Arabia.
Because there are no reporting requirements in the international oil industry, capacity figures vary widely.
Mr. Caruso's agency estimates that Saudi Arabia has slightly more than half the spare production capacity of 4.5 million to 5 million barrels a day that exists in member nations of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
A group of experts led by Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, estimates that total spare capacity is only three million barrels, and that the Saudis control two-thirds of that.
In the three months after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the largest oil supply disruption in American history occurred, with the daily shortfall averaging 4.6 million barrels, government records show.
Prices doubled for a time. But the shortage was largely offset by increased Saudi oil production, which went from 5.8 million barrels a day in August to 8.5 million by December, according to data in Energy Department's oil market contingency planning book.
Some analysts question whether Saudi Arabia actually has the spare capacity it says it has.
"We all take the Saudi assurances for granted," said Matthew Simmons, head of Simmons & Company International, a Houston-based energy advisory firm, but "the last time Saudi Arabia ever got close to 9 or 10 was in 1980. Their largest field is 55 years old, and they do not disclose their field-by-field production data, so we really don't know for sure."
Government and industry oil experts praise the administration for its focus on energy security. But they say it has been too quiet about its plans, given how openly the issue is discussed in the oil markets and the administration's own push for more transparent oil markets.
Administration officials say they have adopted a cautious approach to avoid roiling the markets. "Something said casually could be misinterpreted and influence the markets," said one Energy Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
More than a half-century ago, the United States developed a close relationship with the Saudi ruling family, tacitly if not explicitly trading support for the government for access to oil.
But the events of Sept. 11 raised fresh questions in the United States about Saudi Arabia: 15 hijackers and much of Al Qaeda's finances came from the kingdom.
On the Saudi side, the American military presence in the country is one factor in the "increasingly open challenges" to the royal family's control, a recently released assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says.
Both governments insist that the relationship is as strong as ever. But the Pentagon has developed regional alternatives to the use of Saudi military installations, and a draft of a secret Congressional report has criticized the Saudis for not cooperating with Americans investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.
Still, the prospects of a war with Iraq show how oil continues to bind Saudi Arabia's relationship with the United States.
The countries' dealings have always been marked by quiet diplomacy. But according to Bush advisers and officials, the fear that critics would, perhaps unfairly, link the administration's policies to the oil industry has added another layer of secrecy.
"If you are trying to talk about Iraq and if you were not encumbered by the fear that your actions would be linked to Exxon Mobil or the oil industry," said one Bush adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, "you'd be talking about oil issues."
Vice President Dick Cheney tackled the issue of energy security in the administration's National Energy Policy report. The report noted that Saudi Arabia's policy of "investing in spare oil production capacity" had lessened the impact of oil supply disruptions in any region.
But the report also called for greater "diversity of world oil production." to avoid possible instability due to "concentration of world oil production in any one region of the world."
After Sept. 11, President Bush decided to increase the American strategic reserve to 700 million barrels. But some experts say more is needed, in part to reduce the importance of Persian Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia.
"You want to make it politically impossible for the Saudis to use their swing capacity as a political club," said James Woolsey, President Clinton's first C.I.A. director and one of the advocates of increasing the reserve to one billion barrels.
President Bush's national security strategy, released in September, proposed to "enhance energy security" by working with allies to "expand the sources and types of global energy supplied, especially in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Central Asia and the Caspian region."
The strategy did not mention the Persian Gulf, the source of most of the world's known oil reserves and virtually all of the world's spare oil capacity.
Energy security issues were front and center two weeks ago in Washington at a conference on the economic consequences of an attack on Iraq. The conference was sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Panel members called for more complete and understandable data on oil markets, a position supported by the Bush administration. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham backed a Saudi initiative in that area during a forum in Japan.
Experts on the panel said Saudi Arabia's stated intention to fill in the supply gaps made the outlook for oil markets more favorable than it was after the sudden Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Moreover, the loss of Iraqi oil exports would be far less than the loss of 4.5 million barrels a day that occurred as a result of Iraq's invasion, which halted Kuwait's production, too.
But the center's analysis included some new problems and a few unknowns. Commercial petroleum stocks are much tighter today than in 1990, and there is less ability to substitute other fuels.
Furthermore, no one knows what President Saddam Hussein of Iraq might do to his own or his neighbors' oil fields, or whether sympathetic terrorists might hit oil targets in the region.
-------- environment
Defunct Defense Sites Littered With Problems
By Cat Lazaroff,
November 26, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-26-06.asp
WASHINGTON, DC - Dozens of sites, adding up to an area larger than the state of Florida, are contaminated by bombs, chemical and biological weapons buried on abandoned and converted defense sites, show documents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The documents, including unpublished material excised from later versions, were released Monday by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The nonprofit group says that the EPA documents show that shoddy military cleanups in violation of regulatory standards, poor or nonexistent records and the reluctance of Pentagon authorities to take responsibility for these problems, all serve to compound the risks of defunct military sites.
ordnance
Some of the munitions retrieved by the Army Corps from the Badlands Bombing Range in South Dakota. (Photo by Robert Etzel. Four photos courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of local, state and federal resource professionals, warns that the public health and environmental consequences from weapons buried on former defense sites in the U.S. are much larger than has been reported.
"The true magnitude of this unfolding ecological disaster is masked by the Pentagon's unwillingness to complete a reliable inventory or adopt credible cleanup rules," said PEER executive director Jeff Ruch.
According to one document, a staff briefing paper for recently confirmed EPA enforcement director John Suarez, cleanup of the old military ranges "has the potential to be the largest environmental cleanup program ever to be implemented in the United States."
The EPA documents indicate that there are an estimated 16,000 military ranges containing unexploded ordnance contaminating up to 40 million acres of land. Many of these sites have already been converted to civilian uses, but the cleanups performed by the Defense Department violate both civilian and Pentagon regulations and are plagued by "ill advised short cuts to limit costs," the EPA's briefing paper shows.
"After inflicting the largest ecological cleanup bill in history on the American taxpayer, characteristically, no one at the Pentagon will stand up and take responsibility for this mess," Ruch charged.
Plum Brook
Groundwater investigations are still underway at the Plum Brook Ordnance Works in Ohio, which produced TNT, DNT and nitric and sulfuric acids during World War II. Ruch's organization was among a host of environmental and public interest groups that opposed efforts by the Bush administration and the Pentagon to win exemptions for military activities and bases from an array of hazardous waste and anti-pollution laws. While the final version of the 2003 Defense Authorization bill included a provision to exempt the military from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Congress declined to allow exemptions from other major environmental regulations, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
The PEER report offers new ammunition to those who argue that the military should be required to do more, not less, to ensure that the sites they use are left safe for the environment and the public. For example, among the common methods used by the military services "to rid ranges of both used and unused munitions" are open burning and open detonation. Yet the services obtained proper environmental permits for these activities only one-third of the time, the EPA documents show. Many former military sites have been converted into housing, parks or other civilian uses, but almost half of the sites lack fencing, warning signs or other "institutional controls" to protect the public from unexploded munitions. Staff at the EPA recorded "38 public encounters" with grenades, mortars, shells and other buried weapons.
And an EPA survey of closed or transferred military ranges found that more than half of the surveyed sites "indicated that chemical or biological weapons were found or suspected on their ranges."
Under pressure from the Pentagon, PEER argues, the EPA removed even more damning conclusions from its final report, "Used or Fired Munitions and Unexploded Ordnance at Closed, Transferred and Transferring Military Ranges," released in September 2000. The Department of Defense (DoD) funded the survey and also finances the EPA's Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office - putting the EPA in the position of sometimes having to decide whether to prosecute its funder.
Dolly Sods
A building in the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in West Virginia, which was used as a bombing range during World War II Removed from the survey were the following passages:
- "The ranges in this survey pose potentially significant threats to human health and the environment. Although most ranges are in rural or remote areas or near small towns, there are residences within close proximity to most of the ranges. In addition, 33 percent are on or near surface water, wetlands or floodplains, thus potentially exposing ecological receptors and making cleanup more difficult."
- "DoD often does not adhere to the requirements of applicable statutes or regulations [citations omitted]. DoD's use of modified or inconsistent interpretations of the applicable statute or regulation results in many UXO [unexploded ordnance] contaminated areas not being investigated or, when discovered, not being addressed."
- "EPA, other regulators, and all non-DoD parties have strong concerns regarding CTT [closed, transferred or transferring] ranges where significant amounts of UXO remain and the property is already being used for a wide variety of land uses (other than a military range). The expected future use of over half the ranges in this survey is residential."
Power House
This building in Point Pleasant, West Virginia was used to manufacture TNT during World War II. The EPA also found weapons contamination in one-fifth of surveyed ranges at off range locations. One excised portion of the EPA survey states, "Anecdotal evidence suggests DoD is often reluctant to investigate off range areas."
Senator Jon Corzine, a New Jersey Democrat, said the PEER report highlights the need for Congressional action regarding the cleanup of hazardous materials on military ranges around the country. Corzine called on the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe, to schedule hearings next year on the matter.
"It is government's responsibility to examine the status of these cleanups and to ensure that they proceed quickly and safely," said Corzine. "There is no excuse for taking shortcuts when it comes to protecting the health and safety of Americans from hazardous environmental risks."
PEER has posted the unpublished EPA draft report at: http://www.peer.org/EPA/EPA_Draft_UXO_Report.pdf
----
States seek tougher 'right to know' on toxics
Story by Stephanie Nebehay
REUTERS SWITZERLAND:
November 26, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18783/story.htm
GENEVA - Negotiators from Europe, Central Asia and North America began talks yesterday to finalise an international pact to strengthen people's right to know about the presence of chemical waste and toxic pollutants.
Under a draft plan, hammered out over two years of negotiations, states would set up national registers of industrial pollutants released into the water, air and soil.
The pact, which countries hope to be able to sign next year, covers the disposal, storage, recycling or treatment of dangerous materials ranging from minerals to metals, fertilisers and hydrocarbons.
But the week-long talks, the last scheduled session of negotiations, come amid complaints by environmental groups that some toxic substances - radioactive waste and cancer-causing chemicals - risk being dropped from the draft deal under pressure from industry lobbyists.
Friends of the Earth and other activists warn that some countries are pressing for known carcinogenic substances, such as beryllium, a metal used in some electronic appliances, and chromium VI, employed in pigments and dyes, leather tanning and wood preserving, to be removed from the list.
Another area of concern is styrene - a possible carcinogen used widely in rubber, plastics, insulation, fibreglass and autoparts - which is also in line to be omitted.
"The public should have the right to know what chemicals are being discharged by companies and where they are being stored," said Mary Taylor, researcher at Friends of the Earth.
REVOLUTIONARY TREATY
"Protecting certain sectors...from public scrutiny or avoiding the inclusion of cancer-causing chemicals is scandalous," she added.
The pact would be a protocol to the Aarhus Convention, billed as a revolutionary "environmental rights" treaty when signed by 35 states from Europe and Central Asia in 1998.
The legally-binding treaty, which came into force last year, guarantees the public a voice in the state of their water, air and land. Citizens were given more rights to sue industries and authorities who break green laws.
The new protocol aims to go further by requiring countries to collect and publish a list of dangerous substances, although there is still debate on whether thresholds should be set for reporting specific amounts of toxins.
"It is sort of a 'name and shame' effort to put pressure on companies to reduce emissions," Jeremy Wates, of the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), the agency hosting the negotiations, told Reuters.
Germany, which has a powerful chemicals industry, had been amongst countries pushing for a weaker protocol, Taylor said.
But other countries, particularly from the former Soviet bloc, were alarmed at how much it could cost to enforce. "It is a new concept for newly democratic countries," she added.
The protocol should be formally approved by environment ministers from ECE's European region, which includes Central Asia and North America, in Kiev, Ukraine, in May.
-------- genetics
Doctor Claims Cloned Baby Due in Jan.
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Italy-Cloning-Doctor.html
ROME (AP) -- An Italian fertility doctor who has claimed that several women are carrying cloned babies said Tuesday that one of the children would be born in early January. But as with earlier statements, he again offered no evidence.
Dr. Severino Antinori told a news conference that a woman was about eight-months pregnant with a cloned baby boy and that the child was developing in an ``absolutely healthy'' way.
In April, Antinori claimed that he knew of three pregnancies -- then in the ninth, seventh and sixth weeks of development -- involving cloned babies. He said Tuesday that the oldest of these was about to be born.
However, according to his statement in April, the longest pregnancy would have passed nine months in mid-November. Antinori would not explain the discrepancy Tuesday.
He also refused to specify if he had any role in the alleged clonings. He did say that he wouldn't be involved in the delivery of the baby, but that he had given a ``cultural and scientific contribution'' to a consortium of scientists involved in the pregnancies. He refused to identify the scientists.
Antinori refused to identify the woman who was to give birth in January or give her nationality. When asked where she was going to give birth he said only ``countries where this is permitted.''
Antinori, who runs a private fertility clinic in Rome, gained attention in the 1990s when he used donor eggs and hormones to help post-menopausal women to have children.
Experts have repeatedly dismissed Antiniori's claims and say they doubt that he is capable of achieving a cloned pregnancy.
-------- ACTIVISTS
The ACLU's beef
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
November 26, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021126-40872145.htm#2
The article "Frederick religious marker stays put" (Page 1, Saturday)reports: "The ACLU sued the city Aug. 23, saying the 5-foot-high granite marker in a city-owned park violates the Constitution's First Amendment ban on state-sponsored religion."
In fact, the First Amendment does not ban "state-sponsored religion." That amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Note the reference to "Congress," not anyone else, including state legislatures and local government. What does Congress have to do with the Ten Commandments being posted on publicly owned land in Frederick, Md.? Did Congress pass some law authorizing the posting of the Ten Commandments? Of course not; Congress has no business telling the city government of Frederick what to do.
Maybe the American Civil Liberties Union was referring to Maryland's state constitution? Article 36 from that document's Declaration of Rights states: "Nothing shall prohibit or require making reference to belief in, reliance upon, or invoking the aid of God or a Supreme Being in any governmental or public document, proceeding, activity, ceremony, school, institution, or place." So the state should not require the posting of the Ten Commandments in a public place, but neither should there be a prohibition thereof. This is the essence of neutrality: not to require and yet not to prohibit.
So what is the ACLU's beef? Is it simply uninformed that its suits have no legal basis?
RAYMOND W. JENSEN
Notre Dame, Ind.
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Indian police arrest 100 in Bhopal disaster protest
REUTERS INDIA:
November 26, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18786/story.htm
BHOPAL, India - About 100 protesters were arrested in central India yesterday after they invaded a plant that was the site of the 1984 Bhopal poison gas disaster and demanded its clean-up, police said.
"We have arrested about 100 people for trespassing and creating disturbances inside the factory without permission," a police officer in Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh state, said. He said the protesters were expected to be freed yesterday night.
During the demonstration, several hundred people broke open the gates of the Union Carbide plant where a poisonous gas leak in December 1984 killed 3,000 people outright and put up banners calling for the plant's clean-up, witnesses and police said.
Environmental groups say tonnes of toxic waste still lie within the walls of the pesticide plant 18 years after what was one of the world's worst industrial accidents.
They say the waste has contaminated the air and water and is causing severe health problems for nearby residents.
"We have been forced to take direct action because nobody has done anything," Sati Nath Sarangi, a spokesman for the Bhopal Group of Information and Action (BGIA), told Reuters.
Those arrested included activists belonging to the environmental group, Greenpeace, and victims of the gas disaster as well as some foreigners, the police official said.
He did not disclose the nationalities of the foreigners.
Aside from the 3,000 people killed at the time, thousands more died in the years afterward and tens of thousands were left with lifelong illnesses.
Although the Indian government's civil case against Union Carbide, which merged with U.S.-based Dow Chemical Co two years ago, was settled in 1989 for $470 million, criminal cases continue in Indian courts.
Earlier this year, a Bhopal court rejected a plea by Indian police to reduce charges against Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide, from culpable homicide to a "rash and negligent act". He faces a jail term of up to 10 years if found guilty.
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Police stop Greenpeace activists from protest at Union Carbide plant in central India
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11262002/ap_49045.asp
BHOPAL, India - Police detained dozens of environmental activists to stop a protest rally Monday at a former Union Carbide chemical plant in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the site of the world's worst industrial disaster.
Nearly 200 Greenpeace activists and victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster gathered at the plant in the state capital, Bhopal, to protest. They had demanded that the plant's new owners, Dow Chemicals International Co., clean up the site.
The Dec. 3, 1984, accident occurred when toxic methyl isocyanate gas, an ingredient in pesticides, leaked from Union Carbide's pesticide plant in Bhopal, killing thousands and causing widespread contamination of water and soil within a two-kilometer (one-mile) radius around the plant.
Monday's protest was called by Greenpeace to highlight the continuing contamination of soil and water from chemicals lying around at the sprawling plant site. They also said there is no security at the plant, and anyone can walk into the contaminated area.
The activists climbed to the roof of the chemical plant and hung up a banner saying people are being "poisoned daily," said Namrat Chowdhury, a Greenpeace spokeswoman at the protest site.
Police used bamboo canes to disperse photographers and TV journalists who were filming the protest action.
Greenpeace activists from 14 countries, including the United States, Europe, Thailand, and Australia were present at the protest, Chowdhury said. It was not immediately clear if they were among those detained by police.
"We had decided not to resist if police wanted to detain any of us but to be taken peacefully into custody," said Chowdhury.
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Iran Forbids Demonstrations Defending a Reformist Scholar
November 26, 2002
New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/international/middleeast/26IRAN.html
TEHRAN, Nov. 25 - Iranian authorities have banned students from holding further demonstrations in support of a pro-reform scholar who was sentenced to death this month, an official said today.
The official, Deputy Science Minister Gholamreza Zarifian, told the daily newspaper Entekhab that the National Security Council, which is headed by the reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, ordered an end to the student demonstrations. The council acted, he said, after Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for a review of the case.
Mr. Zarifian said that university authorities had been advised to discourage students from holding rallies and that the matter was considered resolved after Mr. Khamenei's intervention. A judiciary spokesman, Hossein Mirmuhammad Sadeghi, said today that the case would be reviewed, but did not specify when.
A death sentence issued for an outspoken university lecturer, Hashem Aghajari, unleashed two weeks of some of the worst student protests ever seen in the country. Mr. Aghajari was charged with apostasy after he said people were not monkeys who should follow religious leaders blindly.
Students used the case as a platform to demand expansion of freedom of speech and political reform, which has been prohibited by President Khatami's hard-line opponents.
Students were forced to cancel their so far peaceful protests on Wednesday after hard-line militia forces began attacking their meetings and university authorities refused to issue permits for the protests. But they vowed to press their demands through peaceful means.
"The protests were successful, and we will continue them in different forms," said Reza Delbari, a member of the leading student association, the Office for Consolidating Unity. "Our plan is to avoid violence and suppression," he added.
Mr. Khamenei warned on Friday that the protests were the work of an enemy and that they would be suppressed.
"Those who accuse the Islamic system of despotism and being against freedom are either the enemy or have been deceived by the enemy," he said. On the same day, hundreds of militia forces clashed with pro-democracy participants in a memorial service in downtown Tehran.
The leading reform party, Participation Front, also warned students in a news conference on Sunday that protests could risk a major backlash from hard-liners.
---------
Student Leaders Arrested in Iran After Protests
November 26, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-protests.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Judiciary officials Tuesday swooped and took away at least five student leaders who had organized Iran's largest pro-reform protests in more than three years, student and official sources said.
More arrests are likely, said officials in the Islamic Republic. Analysts said the detentions may revive unrest on university campuses, which had been calmer in recent days after government officials urged students to end their demonstrations.
Students have held two weeks of almost daily class boycotts and rallies of up to 5,000 people to call for freedom of speech and major political reform since a hard-line court sentenced reformist academic Hashem Aghajari to death.
Ebrahim Rezai Babadi, deputy governor of Tehran, said the arrests had been carried out by the Revolutionary Courts, a branch of the hard-line judiciary that normally deals with public order and national security offences.
``Based on our information some other people are going to be arrested,'' Babadi told the ISNA student news agency.
The sources said student leaders Abdollah Momeni, Saeed Razavi Faqih, Mehdi Aminzadeh and Amir Hossein Balali were grabbed on the street in Tehran in four different locations and bundled into cars by groups of men wearing civilian clothes.
One of the men was walking into a university in central Tehran when three cars screeched to a halt and blocked his path, student witnesses said. Tear gas was sprayed at the scene of one of the other arrests, they said.
Another student leader and political activist, Akbar Atri, was arrested at his workplace in Tehran.
GROWING POLITICAL TENSION
The student protests reflected growing political tension in the country of 65 million people, where pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami is trying to curb the power of conservative opponents who control key state institutions such as the judiciary and the armed forces.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure and seen as closer to the conservatives, has denounced the student rallies, saying they were organized by pro-U.S. enemies of the Islamic state.
Political analyst Saeed Leylaz said the arrests could spark further protests. ``They're playing with fire because the atmosphere in the universities is inflamed and this will create tension again.''
The arrests came amid mounting confusion over the fate of Aghajari, a history lecturer whose death sentence for questioning clerical rule sparked the student protests.
While judiciary officials have said they will comply with an order by Khamenei to review his case, Chief Prosecutor Ayatollah Abdonnabi Namazi said Tuesday that the court's verdict would stand unless Aghajari appealed within 20 days of being sentenced.
That period ends on Dec. 3. Aghajari's lawyer said his client had no intention of appealing the sentence, which was issued by a court in western Iran after a closed-door trial without a jury.
Tuesday's arrests followed a warning by leading reformist politicians to students that conservatives might impose emergency rule if the university protests got out of hand.
A similar wave of student protests was brutally suppressed three years ago and many of the student leaders from that era are serving long jail sentences for public order offences.
So far this month's student protests have been largely peaceful, though scuffles have occurred when hard-line Islamic militia have tried to break up the meetings.
Deputy Revolutionary Guards Commander Mohammad Zolqadr told the hard-line Basij militia they might be used to put down any unrest.
``If a group wants to harm the country's national security, the Basij will enter the scene,'' he was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the official news agency IRNA.
----
Petaluma suspends 50 student protesters
Officials cite attendance rules in one-day suspension for walkout
November 26, 2002
By JOSE L. SANCHEZ Jr. and ROBERT DIGITALE
THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/26suspend_a1.html
About 50 Petaluma High School students who walked out of classes Wednesday to protest U.S. policy on Iraq have received one-day suspensions.
Some students and their parents said Monday the suspensions were unfair because students at other Sonoma County high schools who also staged protest walkouts were not suspended.
Petaluma school officials did not make the decision "lightly or capriciously," said Tom Joynt, director of alternative education and child welfare and attendance.
"It's the obligation of the principal to ensure compliance with attendance rules," he said.
"I am heartened that young people are learning the responsibility of being a citizen, which often means dissent from popular opinion," Joynt said.
But he said the protesters also learned another lesson: "Civil disobedience can have a consequence, such as in this case suspension."
Allowing students to walk out without consequences would set a bad precedent, he said.
Petaluma High officials said they provided other opportunities for the protesters to express their views, but they have an obligation to maintain order at the 1,540-student campus.
"I don't think we should have been suspended," said Rosie Heartte, 17, one of the protesters. "One of our main purposes was to educate students about the issue and we did that."
"If we go to war, it's absolute that innocent civilians are going to die and that young Americans will be sent over to fight," she said. "We need to explore other options, continue to make use of the U.N."
The walkout occurred at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, a half-hour before a rally organized by school officials in the school's open-air quadrangle to give students a chance to express their views on Iraq.
Students who walked out of their classes early were guided by school officials to the multipurpose room, where they listened peacefully to several speakers.
On Thursday, the students who had walked out were summoned by school officials and told they would be be suspended for one day Monday.
"What is very sad ... is that these are young adults who attempted to negotiate with the administration prior to walking out and they were completely shut down," said Rachelle Heartte, Rosie's mother.
Petaluma High Principal Michael Simpson said he made every attempt to offer students an alternative to the walkout and to urge them to remain in class.
He spoke to students that morning over the school's intercom system as part of the daily announcements.
"I did tell them that if they walked, there would be consequences," he said.
In addition to arranging for the lunchtime rally Wednesday, Simpson is providing a forum today for the expression of views on Iraq.
About 150 students from Santa Rosa High walked out of classes at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and marched to a downtown rally in Old Courthouse Square, administrators said. None of those students was suspended, Assistant Principal Bill Blackerby said.
He said that the students were given unexcused absences and that officials never considered suspending the protesters.
None of the estimated 60 to 70 students who walked out of classes at Analy High School in Sebastopol was suspended, officials there said.
The walkouts and rallies were part of a national Student Day of Resistance initiated by Not in Our Name, an anti-war group founded after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to protest U.S. foreign policy.
Carl Wong, former superintendent of Petaluma city schools and the superintendent-elect of Sonoma County schools, said school districts across the county were notified by students of their intentions to stage the anti-war protests.
He said students were warned that if they participated in the walkouts, there would be a range of possible consequences for leaving class without an excuse.
Wong said some teachers used the coming protest as a "teachable moment," talking about the protest and asking students to consider their choices.
Rosie Steffy, 17, one of the Petaluma walkout organizers, said suspension was a price she was willing to pay to bring attention to an issue she considers vitally important.
Without the suspensions, the issue would not have received as much attention from the press, she said.
"I do think (the suspensions are) reasonable," she said. "But I can't help wondering why the other schools didn't see it the same way."
Staff Writer Randi Rossmann contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writers Jose L. Sanchez Jr. at 762-7297 or jsanchez@pressdemocrat.com and Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or rdigitale@pressdemocrat.com.
----
Release of Chinese Net Activists Sought
November 26, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Internet-Dissidents.html
BEIJING (AP) -- Warning of tightening government controls over the Internet, Amnesty International is demanding the release of 33 people imprisoned for online subversion and says such detainees are emerging as a new category of Chinese ``prisoners of conscience.''
In a sweeping report released Wednesday, the London-based human rights group also said American companies are helping China monitor the Internet through sales of software and other equipment -- boosting China's ability to muzzle discussion online.
``Internet users are the latest group to be ensnared in China's deadly web of arrest, detention and torture, and U.S. corporations increasingly facilitate this repression,'' T. Kumar, Amnesty's Asia advocacy director said in a news release accompanying the report.
The report is the first in which Amnesty identifies Internet users as a new class of dissident -- alongside the religious, political and minority rights dissenters already targeted by China.
``Everyone who is detained purely for peacefully publishing their views or other information on the Internet or for accessing certain Web sites is a prisoner of conscience and they should be released immediately and unconditionally,'' Amnesty International said.
China has about 60 million Internet users -- one of the largest numbers of any country, though the percentage of users in the nation of 1.3 billion remains in single digits.
The Ministry of Information Industry says annual business volume in the Internet industry tops $840 million.
However, China's Communist Party has worked to squelch any role for the network as a forum for free speech. Blocks are placed on scores of Web sites belonging to foreign governments, news organizations and human rights groups -- including Amnesty. Gambling and pornography Web sites are blocked, as well as any site the Chinese government considers extremist.
Thousands of Internet cafes closed after a deadly fire in Beijing have been allowed to reopen only after installing monitoring software. Police monitor e-mail accounts and Internet usage, and Amnesty says some 30,000 officers have been assigned to Internet duty.
The government holds Internet service providers responsible for all postings on their sites. Webmasters are warned to cut off subversive talk in Internet chatrooms.
Asked about the report at a regular Foreign Ministry news briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said he had not seen or heard of it.
``In the past, Amnesty International has published a lot of groundless reports,'' Kong said. ``We handle cases according to law.''
Amnesty said the 33 imprisoned were tried in secret and sentenced mostly for subversion. They include:
--Huang Qi, a computer engineer from the southwest province of Sichuan whose Web site was used to criticize the government. Huang was arrested in June 2000 and charged with subversion, but no verdict has been announced.
--Jin Haike, Xu Wei, Yang Zili and Zhang Honghai, members of a Beijing political study association who posted articles about democratic reform. They were put on trial in April 2001, with no verdict announced.
--Qi Yanchen, freelance writer from northern province of Hebei. He posted articles calling for political reform on the Internet and, in May 2000, was sentenced to four years for subversion.
--Li Dawei, former police officer from Gansu in western China who downloaded articles from Chinese democracy Web sites based overseas. He was tried in 2001 on subversion charges and sentenced to 11 years.
Others detained included members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement who downloaded or distributed online information about the group, Amnesty said. At least three of those arrested for Internet-related crimes have died in police custody, it alleged.
Despite China's relative success at bringing the Internet to heel, the wealth that the new technology it is creating will eventually produce calls for greater protection of civil liberties, Amnesty said.
``As the importance of the Internet grows,'' the report said, ``so too will the millions of users and the demands of those seeking justice and respect for human rights in China.''
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Occupational Exposure to Beryllium;
Request for Information
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002
From: "Vina K Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
Federal Register: November 26, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 228)
Proposed Rules
Page 70707-70712
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26no02-25]
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
29 CFR Part 1910 [Docket No. H005C] RIN 1218-AB76
AGENCY: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Department of Labor.
ACTION: Request for information.
SUMMARY: OSHA requests information and comment on issues related to occupational exposure to beryllium, including current employee exposures to beryllium; the relationship between exposure to beryllium and the development of adverse health effects; exposure assessment and monitoring methods; exposure control methods; employee training; medical surveillance for adverse health effects related to beryllium exposure; and other pertinent subjects. The information received in response to this document will assist the Agency in determining an appropriate course of action regarding occupational beryllium exposure.
DATES: Comments must be submitted by the following dates:
Hard copy: Your comments must be submitted (postmarked or sent) by February 24, 2003.
Facsimile and electronic transmission: Your comments must be sent by February 24, 2003.
(Please see the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for additional information on submitting comments.)
ADDRESSES: Regular mail, express delivery, hand-delivery, and messenger service: You must submit three copies of your comments and attachments to the OSHA Docket Office, Docket No. H005C, Room N-2625, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210. OSHA Docket Office and Department of Labor hours of operation are 8:15 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., EST.
Facsimile: If your comments, including any attachments, are 10 pages or fewer, you may fax them to the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-1648. You must include the docket number of this document, Docket No. H005C, in your comments.
Electronic: You may submit comments, but not attachments, through the Internet at http://ecomments.osha.gov/.
(Please see the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for additional information on submitting comments.)
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: General Information and press inquiries--Bonnie Friedman, Director, OSHA Office of Public Affairs, Room N-3647, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210. Telephone: (202) 693-1999. Technical Information--Amanda Edens, OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance, Room N-3718, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210. Telephone: (202) 693-2093. Electronic copies of this Federal Register notice, as well as news releases and other relevant documents, are available at OSHA's webpage at http://www.osha.gov .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
[[Page 70708]]
I. Submission of Comments on This Notice and Internet Access to Comments and Submissions
You may submit comments in response to this document by (1) hard copy, (2) fax transmission (facsimile), or (3) electronically through the OSHA webpage. Please note that you cannot attach materials such as studies or journal articles to electronic comments. If you have additional materials, you must submit three copies of them to the OSHA Docket Office at the address above. The additional materials must clearly identify your electronic comments by name, date, subject and docket number so we can attach them to your comments. Because of security-related problems there may be a significant delay in the receipt of comments by regular mail. Please contact the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-2350 for information about security procedures concerning the delivery of materials by express delivery, hand delivery and messenger service.
All comments and submissions will be available for inspection and copying at the OSHA Docket Office at the above address. Comments and submissions posted on OSHA's Web site will be available at http://www.osha.gov.
OSHA cautions you about submitting personal information such as social security numbers and birth dates. Contact the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-2350 for information about materials not available through the OSHA web page and for assistance in using the web page to locate docket submissions.
II. Background
Properties and uses. Beryllium has unique characteristics that make it a superior material for certain specialized applications. Compared to other metals, beryllium is very light, has a high melting point, low electrical conductivity, superior strength and stiffness, high thermal conductivity, and high resistance to corrosion. In addition, it is also transparent to X-rays, absorbs neutrons, and is non-magnetic. Beryllium is used in several forms: as a pure metal, as beryllium oxide, and as an alloy with copper, aluminum, magnesium, or nickel.
Until recently, the primary demand for beryllium came from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, where the metal was important in the development of nuclear weapons and in applications for the nuclear power industry. However, the use of beryllium has become more widespread in general industry, both in the manufacture of products containing beryllium and the salvage of materials containing beryllium.
For example, because of its lightness and strength, beryllium and beryllium alloy are used by the aerospace industry in the manufacture of high performance military aircraft, satellites, rocketry and the space shuttle. Beryllium and beryllium alloy are also used in X-ray machines and high-speed computers. Beryllium alloy is used by manufacturers of electrical components to make springs, switches, and other parts that are used in automotive, computer, telecommunication, and other industries. Additional alloy applications include tubing for oil and gas drilling; tool and die making and other mold-making; jewelry; golf clubs; and non-sparking tools. Beryllium oxide is used as a substrate for circuits in computer manufacture and in industries that produce lasers or traveling-wave tubes, automotive ignition systems, radar, microwave systems, and in other electronic and opto-electronic markets. Processes that create employee exposure in these industries typically involve machine shop, metalworking, and finishing processes, such as machining, sanding, stamping, grinding, crushing, lapping, and sintering.
Beryllium is also present in other industries that do not intentionally produce or process the metal. Examples of such activities include abrasive blasting operations, where coal or copper slag is used as a substitute for sand; spot or seam welding of specialized beryllium-copper electrodes; welding processes, where beryllium is in the electrode, in the flux or rod, or in the substrate alloy being fabricated; and recycling metals and other materials from computers and electrical products.
Health Risks Associated With Occupational Exposure to Beryllium and Its Compounds
Some workers exposed to beryllium or beryllium compounds may develop beryllium sensitization, chronic beryllium disease (CBD, also sometimes known as berylliosis), lung cancer, or skin disease (Ex. 4- 1). Acute beryllium disease, a pneumonitis resulting from high beryllium exposure, is now considered rare (Ex. 4-9).
Inhalation appears to be the primary route of exposure to beryllium. However, dermal contact can result in a beryllium-related skin disease characterized by a rash, or wart-like bumps (Ex. 4-15). Questions have been raised regarding the contribution of dermal exposure, ingestion, and genetic factors to the risk of sensitization and CBD. (e.g., Exs. 4-2 and 4-14).
Chronic Beryllium Disease
CBD primarily affects the lungs. Inhalation of beryllium dust appears to be the primary route of exposure in CBD. Research indicates that beryllium exposure causes some workers to become sensitized, which may result in the formation of granulomas (inflammatory cells surrounding beryllium particles) in the lung that reduce oxygen exchange (Ex. 4-15). Proliferation of granulomas leads to additional symptoms of CBD, such as dry cough, chest pain, weakness, fatigue and progressive shortness of breath (Ex. 4-9). Progression of the disease may lead to weight loss, acrocyanosis (blueness or pallor of the extremities usually associated with pain and numbness), and eventually, heart failure. The clinical course of CBD is considered highly variable; because the disease may develop slowly over time, workers may have the disease for years without knowing it. With progression, CBD is sometimes fatal. (Ex. 4-10).
The amount or length of exposure to beryllium necessary to cause a specific individual to develop CBD is not known, but recent information suggests that even short exposures to levels of beryllium below OSHA's Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) of 2 [mu]g/m3 averaged over an 8-hour day may lead to CBD in some workers (Exs. 4-5, 4-7, and 4-8). CBD may develop within months after initial exposure to beryllium or may have a very slow onset and not develop for 25 years or more and may even develop after exposure has ceased (Ex. 4-9). The prevalence of CBD among beryllium exposed workers has been reported to range from an average of about 2% to a high of approximately 15% for workers involved in machining operations in the manufacture of beryllium products (Exs. 4-5, 4-6, and 4-8).
Measurement of exposure to total airborne beryllium dust may not be the best predictor of CBD. Particle size, surface area, number of particles, solubility, and the chemical form of beryllium involved may all be relevant to the development of disease. It has been suggested that development of disease may be more closely correlated with the mass or number of particles deposited in the alveolar regions of the lung than with total dust exposure (Exs. 4-4 and 4-11).
Only workers who have developed sensitization to beryllium are believed to develop CBD. Following sensitization, CBD can develop with or without additional exposure (Ex. 4-13). Lang (Ex. 4-10) estimates that the probability of developing CBD following
[[Page 70709]]
sensitization is approximately 10% per year and that about half of those sensitized will go on to develop pulmonary granulomas within three to four years. Similarly, Newman (Ex. 4-13) reported that almost 50% of a beryllium-sensitized follow-up group of 44 subjects developed CBD within 4 years of becoming sensitized.
The Beryllium Lymphocyte Proliferation Test (BeLPT) can identify employees who are sensitized to beryllium. Sensitized individuals are typically further evaluated by biopsy, high resolution computerized tomography, or other means, such as the exercise tolerance test or bronchoalveolar lavage, to determine if they have CBD. Diagnosis of CBD depends on demonstration of pathologic changes such as granulomas in the lungs, along with evidence that these changes are the result of hypersensitivity to beryllium (e.g., positive BeLPT results) (Exs. 4-15 and 4-19).
Lung Cancer
The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies beryllium and beryllium compounds as carcinogenic to humans (Ex. 4-3). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health classifies beryllium and beryllium compounds as a ``potential occupational carcinogen'' (Ex. 4-12). The Environmental Protection Agency classifies beryllium and beryllium compounds as a ``probable human carcinogen'' (Ex. 4-18). Recent epidemiological studies have reported excess lung cancer deaths among beryllium-exposed employees (Exs. 4-16 and 4-17). A variety of beryllium metal alloys, compounds, and ores have also been shown to cause lung cancer in rats and monkeys in inhalation and intratracheal instillation studies (Exs. 4-3 and 4-18).
Occupational health regulation of beryllium exposure. The first occupational exposure limit for beryllium was set in 1949 by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC required that beryllium exposure in the workplaces under its jurisdiction be limited to 2 [mu]g/m\3\ as an 8-hour time-weighted-average (TWA) and 25 [mu]g/m\3\ as a peak exposure, never to be exceeded.
In 1971, OSHA adopted, under Section 6(a) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and made applicable to general industry, a national consensus standard (ANSI Z37.29-1970) for beryllium and beryllium compounds. The standard sets a PEL for beryllium and beryllium compounds at 2 [mu]g/m\3\ as an 8-hour TWA; 5 [mu]g/m\3\ as an acceptable ceiling concentration; and 25 [mu]g/m\3\ as an acceptable maximum peak above the acceptable ceiling concentration for an 8-hour shift. (29 CFR Part 1910.1000; Table Z-2).
In 1975, OSHA proposed a new beryllium standard for all industries based on information that beryllium caused cancer in animal experiments (40 FR 48814 (10/17/75)). Adoption of this proposal would have lowered the 8-hour TWA exposure limit from 2 [mu]g/m\3\ to 1 [mu]g/m\3\. In addition, the proposal included provisions for exposure monitoring, hygiene facilities, medical surveillance, and training related to the health hazards from beryllium exposure. This rulemaking was never completed.
Based upon information showing that OSHA's current PEL of 2 [mu]g/ m\3\ may not be adequate to protect workers from developing CBD, OSHA placed beryllium on its Regulatory Agenda in 1998. In 1999, the Department of Energy issued a Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program Final Rule for employees exposed to beryllium in its facilities, setting an action level of 0.2 [mu]g/m\3\. This action level triggers workplace precautions and control measures. (DOE, 10 CFR part 850)
In 1999, OSHA was petitioned by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE) (Ex. 1-1) and by Dr. Lee Newman and Ms. Margaret Mroz, from the National Jewish Medical Research Center (Ex. 1-2), to promulgate an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for beryllium in the workplace. In 2001, OSHA was petitioned for an ETS by Public Citizen Health Research Group and again by PACE (Ex. 1-10). OSHA denied the petitions.
III. Key Issues On Which Comment Is Requested
The control of occupational exposures to beryllium and its compounds presents a number of complex issues. OSHA is seeking information, data, and comment that the Agency can use to address these issues. OSHA has included these questions to provide a basis for response to this general request for information. When answering specific numbered questions below, key your responses to the number of the question, explain the reasons supporting your views, and identify and provide relevant information on which you rely, including, but not limited to, data, studies and articles. However, respondents are encouraged to address any aspect of occupational exposure to beryllium that they feel is pertinent. OSHA intends to use the information it obtains to decide on a course of action regarding occupational exposures to beryllium.
A. Employee Exposure
(1) Where and how is beryllium currently used? Please provide any workplace or industry-specific data you have indicating the amount of beryllium used, its form, and the processes and products in which it is used. OSHA is particularly interested in identifying industries and operations whose use of beryllium is not noted here, and in identifying uses of beryllium that involve small businesses.
(2) What are the job categories in which employees are potentially exposed to beryllium in your company or industry? For each job category, please provide a description of how the exposure takes place within that job category.
(3) How many employees are exposed to beryllium, or have the potential for exposure, in each job category in your company or industry?
(4) What are the frequency, duration and levels of employee exposures to beryllium in each job category in your company or industry? Please include the analytical method and type of samples used for determining exposure levels. OSHA requests that, if possible, exposure data be personal samples with clear descriptions of the length of the sample. If this is not possible, the exposure data should indicate the form and length of the exposure.
B. Health Effects
OSHA is aware of a number of studies showing an association between adverse health effects and exposure to beryllium. The Agency is seeking the most recent and important studies that can be used to identify significant adverse health effects related to occupational beryllium exposure.
(5) Which studies should OSHA consider in assessing the potential health risks of CBD and lung cancer associated with exposure to beryllium? Please explain your rationale for recommending these studies, including potential strengths and weaknesses, such as size of the population studied, characterization of exposure, and confounding factors.
(6) Which recent studies examine the effects from dermal exposure and absorption of beryllium?
(7) Describe any studies showing adverse health effects resulting from routes of occupational beryllium exposure other than dermal contact and inhalation.
(8) Describe any studies that address the mechanisms of action of beryllium
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in the development of CBD, sensitization, or lung cancer.
(9) Which studies or other information should OSHA take into account in examining the role of genetic factors in the development of beryllium-related disease?
(10) Describe characteristics of beryllium aerosols (e.g., particle size, surface area, particle number) that are related to the development of disease.
(11) To what extent do different forms of beryllium have specific properties (e.g., solubility) that should be taken into consideration when assessing health risks?
C. Risk Assessment
OSHA is interested in data that will assist it in developing quantitative estimates of the occupational risk of sensitization, CBD, or lung cancer based on the level, timing, and duration of exposure to beryllium. Case reports and epidemiological and animal studies on these measures, along with associated exposure data characterizing total or respirable mass, particle number, particle surface area, and dermal exposure are desired.
(12) Which studies should be used for a quantitative risk assessment for CBD and lung cancer?
(13) Which approaches (i.e., methods, models, data) should OSHA use for estimating risk from exposure to beryllium?
(14) Which mathematical models are most appropriate to quantify the risk of cancer or other adverse health effects from exposure to beryllium or beryllium compounds? Describe the strengths and weaknesses of these models.
(15) Which mathematical lung deposition models are appropriate to characterize beryllium lung uptake?
(16) Describe studies the Agency should consider that relate to the dose-response behavior of beryllium, including cellular, mechanistic, and dosimetric considerations. For instance, are any adverse health effects of beryllium dependent on the time period over which exposure occurs rather than dependent on the total cumulative dose received, or are there data that suggest beryllium exhibits a threshold effect?
(17) Do short-term peak exposures play a role in causing adverse health effects, especially sensitization? If so, provide any information that addresses this role.
(18) Are there studies or other evidence on the combined effects of inhalation and dermal exposure?
(19) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has prepared a quantitative risk assessment addressing the risks for sensitization and lung cancer related to beryllium exposure in the ambient environment (Ex. 4-18). In addition, the California EPA (CalEPA) published a quantitative risk assessment addressing risks for sensitization and CBD in the ambient environment (Ex. 4-20). Should OSHA rely on these assessments to characterize the risk of sensitization, CBD, or lung cancer from occupational exposure to beryllium? Are there other assessments that the Agency should consult? For Beryllium sensitization, the two assessments relied on the same key study of beryllium ceramics plant workers by Kreiss et al. (Ex. 4-6), but used some different uncertainty/modifying factors. Should OSHA, in characterizing the risk of beryllium sensitization, rely on (a) the same key study, (b) the same methodology, and (c) the uncertainty/ modifying factors used by USEPA and the CalEPA?
D. Exposure Assessment and Monitoring Methods
(20) Is initial sampling, objective data, or some other measure used to estimate beryllium exposures in your facility? Describe any programs that have been implemented for initial assessment of exposure to beryllium.
(21) Describe any follow-up or periodic exposure assessments that you conduct. How often do you conduct such follow-up or periodic exposure assessments?
(22) What type of exposure monitoring methods are available for measuring beryllium in the workplace? Provide information on any sampling and analytical methods available for determining exposure based on total or respirable mass, particle size, particle number, particle surface area, or dermal contact. Information on the precision and accuracy of the sampling method, the range and limits of detection, the method of validation of sampling and analysis, and any potential sources of chemical interference is desired.
E. Control Measures and Technological Feasibility
(23) What types of engineering controls or work practices are used by your facility to reduce exposure to beryllium? Describe the effectiveness of these controls in reducing worker exposure and indicate any operations or processes in your facility for which engineering controls are not available, are ineffective, or are too costly to use. Give specific examples where engineering controls or work practices have been applied or evaluated or where engineering control programs have been implemented to ensure reliable operation of control systems.
(24) Are there other materials available that can be substituted for beryllium in your processes? Describe any technical, economic or other barriers or hindrances to substitution.
(25) Describe housekeeping practices used in your facility to control employee exposure to beryllium, including cleaning methods used (e.g., wet vacuuming, vacuums with HEPA filters, tack cloths), the frequency of these activities, and any prohibited housekeeping practices (e.g., dry sweeping or use of compressed air).
(26) Are clean rooms, change rooms, shower areas, or separate lunchrooms used in your facility for hygiene and housekeeping in the control of beryllium exposure? Indicate the effectiveness of these measures in reducing employee exposure to beryllium, and describe the procedures followed or methods used to ensure that these areas are free from beryllium contamination.
(27) Are respirators or other types of personal protective equipment (e.g., gloves, overalls or other clothing, goggles, face shields) provided to employees in your facility to protect them against exposure to beryllium? If so, describe your program and identify the type of equipment used, the basis for selection, and any difficulties encountered in implementing your program (e.g., problems with cleaning inner surfaces of respirators contaminated with beryllium).
(28) Describe the conditions under which respirators and other personal protective equipment are used, including any criteria (e.g., regulated area, exposure level, type of operation, duration of exposure) used to trigger requirements for use of such equipment.
(29) Are there processes or areas where it is impracticable to use respirators or other protective equipment to protect against exposure to beryllium? Describe those situations and explain what measures are taken to protect employees.
(30) Other than reducing employee exposure to beryllium, has adoption of control measures resulted in any additional benefits? Provide specific details of the benefits.
(31) Have any technological changes within your industry influenced the frequency, duration, or magnitude of exposure to beryllium or the means by which employers attempt to control exposures? The Agency requests that commenters describe in detail any technological changes within industries that have altered methods of control. Information linking control technologies and data on exposure levels associated
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with the application of controls is desired.
(32) Is the Department of Energy Beryllium Disease Prevention Program (10 CFR part 850) a viable program for non-DOE beryllium users?
F. Economic Impacts
(33) What are the potential economic impacts of reducing occupational exposures to beryllium in terms of costs of controls, costs for training, benefits from reduction in the number or severity of illnesses, effects on revenue and profit, changes in worker productivity, or any other impact measure that you can to identify? Provide, if possible, explicit examples of costs that could be incurred (e.g., dollar estimates for controls) or benefits that could be achieved (e.g., dollar estimates for medical savings from a reduction in the number or severity of beryllium-related illnesses).
(34) What changes in market conditions would result from reducing employees' exposures to beryllium? Please include in your response any changes in market structure or concentration, or effects on domestic or international shipments of beryllium-related products or services that would be expected to result from reducing occupational exposures to beryllium.
G. Employee Training
(35) What information and training is provided to your employees to reduce risks associated with occupational exposure to beryllium? OSHA seeks comment on the information and training provided or recommended for workers exposed to beryllium, including job categories included in your training program, criteria for determining which employees receive information and training, program structure, content, methods, frequency, and any procedures used to address language barriers.
(36) How do you determine the effectiveness of training? Describe methods used and any factors taken into account in examining the effectiveness of training programs.
(37) Describe any ways in which beryllium-related training could be improved.
H. Medical Surveillance
(38) Which criteria are used, or should be used, to determine when occupational medical screening or surveillance should be provided? Describe the job categories, duties, exposure levels, or any other basis used for determining when health screening should be provided to employees.
(39) Which screening tests or procedures are used, or should be used, for early identification of adverse health effects related to beryllium exposure? Explain the basis for your position.
(40) If the BeLPT is part of your screening and surveillance program, describe its role in the program (e.g., factors used to determine eligibility for receiving the test, how the results are used to make decisions about further actions for the employee and the facility).
(41) If the BeLPT is part of your screening and surveillance program, what confirmation protocols are used for determining a worker's sensitivity (e.g., single specimen followed by split-specimen, split specimen followed by split specimen)?
(42) If the BeLPT is part of your screening and surveillance program, describe your experience with the test, including information regarding the sensitivity, specificity, false positive rate, false negative rate, and positive predictive value of the test, and any difficulties found with the interpretation of test results.
(43) How often should beryllium-related health screening be performed?
(44) What happens after an employee in your facility is identified as sensitized or diagnosed with beryllium-related disease? Describe the policies and procedures that are followed, including any provisions for removal from exposure and return to work.
(45) Has health screening and surveillance had any effect on the number or severity of adverse health effects associated with beryllium exposure?
I. Environmental Effects
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321, et seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations (40 CFR part 1500), and the Department of Labor (DOL) NEPA Compliance Regulations (29 CFR part 11), require that OSHA give appropriate consideration to environmental issues and the impacts of proposed actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. OSHA is currently collecting written information and data on possible environmental impacts that could occur outside of the workplace (e.g., exposure to the community through contaminated air/water, contaminated waste sites, etc.) if the Agency were to issue guidance or revise the existing standard for occupational exposure to beryllium. Such information should include both negative and positive environmental effects that could be expected to result from guidance or a revised standard. Specifically, OSHA requests comments and information on the following:
(46) What is the potential direct or indirect environmental impact (for example, the effect on air and water quality, energy usage, solid waste disposal, and land use) from a reduction in employee exposure to beryllium or the use of substitutes for beryllium?
(47) Are there any situations in which reducing beryllium exposures to employees would be inconsistent with meeting environmental regulations?
J. Impact on Small Business Entities
Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.), OSHA is required to assess the impact of proposed and final rules on small entities. OSHA requests that members of the small business community, or other parties familiar with regulation of small business, address any special circumstances facing small firms in controlling occupational exposure to beryllium.
(48) How many and what kinds of small businesses or other small entities in your industry could be affected by amending OSHA's beryllium standard? Describe any such effects.
(49) Are there special issues that make control of beryllium exposures more difficult or more costly in small firms?
(50) Are there any reasons that the benefits of reducing occupational exposure to beryllium might be less in small firms than in larger firms? With regard to potential impacts on small firms, describe specific concerns that should be addressed, and any alternatives that might serve to minimize these impacts while meeting the requirements of the OSH Act.
K. Duplication/Overlapping/Conflicting Rules
(51) Are there any federal regulations that might duplicate, overlap or conflict with guidance or a revised standard concerning beryllium? If so, identify which ones and explain how they would duplicate, overlap or conflict.
(52) Are there any federal programs in areas such as defense or energy that might be impacted by guidance or a revised standard concerning beryllium? If so, identify which ones and explain how they would be impacted.
Authority and Signature
This document was prepared under the direction of John L. Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC, 20210. It is issued pursuant to sections 4, 6, and 8 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 653, 655,
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657), Secretary's Order 3-2000, and 29 CFR part 1911.
Signed at Washington, DC, this 21st day of November, 2002. John L. Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of Labor. [FR Doc. 02-29984 Filed 11-25-02; 8:45 am]
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