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NUCLEAR
Spent fuel assembly dropped at Fort Calhoun
Russia: latest nuke news-09/24
Radioactive Parcel Bound for U.S. Seized in Ukraine
Generational Casualties
Troops cleared over uranium scare
Serbia cleans up depleted uranium fired by NATO
PFBR - atoms of a power dream
Israeli military chief warns against Iranian non-conventional weapons
Iran Refines Stance on Nuclear Program
Iran Says It Is Not Able to Make Nukes
Iran Denies Having Nuclear Weapons Technology
Inspectors' report will find no WMD in Iraq: US source
No Conclusions Likely in Iraq CIA Report
Inquiry Unlikely to Report Finding Iraq Arms
U.S. withdrew opposition to Tokai plant
Kawaguchi eyes bigger SDF role
S.Korea's Roh Links Iraq Request to N.Korea Talks
Push for missile defense could lead to risk: US Congress report
Pentagon 'pushing missile defence system too fast'
Report Sees Risks in Push for Missile Defense
New Zealand to build nuclear test monitoring station in Fiji
Secret shipment
IAEA Chief ElBaradei Slams U.S. 'Mini - Nuke' Plans
Congressional Auditors Find U.S. Nuclear Plant Security Flawed
Probe Finds Nuke Plant Security Concerns
Entergy expresses 'sincere regret'
Let the neo-cons bellow, just bring the troops home
There Is Nothing Conservative About the US Policy in Iraq
White House Presses Its $87 Billion Request for Iraq
Clark Lays Out $100 Billion Plan for Jobs and Security
Analysis A Vague Pitch Leaves Mostly Puzzlement
Congress Completes Defense Spending Bills
DEADLINE FOR THE "PATRIOT ACT"
Kucinich in Print
MILITARY
'Most evil place in Afghanistan' under fresh rocket attack: US
AfghaniScam:Livin' Large Inside Karzai's Reconstruction Bubble
Britain's military chief begins India visit
South Korea sends mission to Iraq following US request for troops
Pentagon Faults Senators On Plane-Lease Proposal
Raytheon Group Mulls Predator UAVs For NATO
Bulgarian soldiers in Iraq demand danger money for serving in Iraq
Brussels to give E200m to rebuild Iraq
Schroeder offers support to Bush
Deadly Bombings on Rise in Iraq; 1 Killed in Baghdad Blast
FAO Says Millions of Iraqis Desperately Hungry
Israeli pilots refuse missions in Palestinian territories: TV
Experts: Israeli Military Stronger After American Victory In Iraq
Israel A Danger
Assassination, Occupation, Separation
On the Fence
Hamas Rejects Talk of Cease-Fire with Israel
"Indo-Israeli Alliance Affects Regional Players"
Venezuela's Chavez Blasts U.S. Over 'Terrorist' Plot
Congress, White House at Odds Over Saudi Arabia
TENSION ERUPTS BETWEEN SAUDIS, U.S.
200 held in Yemen 'to placate US'
NATO interested in modernizing Tajik forces: Robertson
Singapore, Malaysian navies in joint exercise
New Philippine defense chief pledges to work for peace
Europe readies for first moon mission
Why gather intelligence if our leaders deliberately ignore it?
Airman Is Charged as Spy for Syria at Guantánamo
Panel to close Pentagon terror-spy office
China urges greater UN role in Iraq
US aggression breeds terror: UN chief
At the U.N., Bush Wins No Fresh Pledges of Iraq Aid
Annan Tells General Assembly That U.N. Must Correct Its Weaknesses
Killer disease hits gulf vets early
Senior general says many more reservists may go to Iraq
Despite Protests, U.S. Soldiers Detain Photographer and Driver
Corps of Engineers Chief Drafts Plan to Reorganize Agency
Networks banned from Iraq council
Déjà Vu With Condoleezza Rice
Iraqi Council Denies Access To 2 Arab Satellite Networks
Belgium drops war crimes cases
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Romney seeks new death penalty
Sept. 11 Panel Weighs Ideas for Domestic Intelligence
Concerns about citizen privacy grow as states create 'Matrix' database
Virus Disrupts U.S. Visas
Ashcroft's edict
Athens Runs Mock Olympics Chemical Attack Drill
ENERGY AND OTHER
No Electricity? Use a Wind-Up Phone Charger
Conservationists Decry Removal of Judge From Everglades Case
Enlarged environmental 'dead zone' ripples across Lake Erie
Toxic fire retardant found in breast milk
ACTIVISTS
U.S. activists ask Congress to withhold Iraq funds
ACLU seeks fairness at protests
Saudi Dissident Arrested Before Reform Meeting
Lawsuit Criticizes Secret Service
Western Shoshone Distribution Bill Sched
A-Bomb Survivors' Message to the People of the United States
Anti-war teacher quits her job rather than her principles
Citizens across the U.S. speak out
Bring Our Children Home from Iraq Now!
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Spent fuel assembly dropped at Fort Calhoun
Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)
24 Sep 2003
Platts
ttp://www.platts.com/stories/nuclear1.html
Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) suspended off-loading Fort Calhoun's core after a spent fuel assembly became "ungrappled" and fell while being moved to its storage location in the plant's spent fuel pool, OPPD spokesman Mike Jones said Sept. 24. The assembly was underwater Sept. 23 when it dropped from the fuel handling machine, he said. Jones said he didn't have information on how far it dropped but said the fuel was not damaged, and no releases occurred as a result of the incident. OPPD won't resume removing fuel from the core until it has a root cause for the drop. Jones said it was too early to tell what effect, if any, this would have on the length of the refueling outage. Fort Calhoun went off line Sept. 12 for a refueling and maintenance outage expected to last around 30 days.
----
Russia: latest nuke news-09/24
From: "Michael Kerjman" <mkwrk2@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed Sep 24, 2003 11:37pm
NEWS-NTV-Russia,
24 September,2003
An environmental group "Beluga" has informed of a radioactive impact on employees at the submarines' used nuke facilities storage on Kolsky Peninsula (North of St.Petersburg). Although a level of radiation was within the norm, ten workers had been affected. It is unclear, whether civil personnel were involved.
Following it, both technical and medical data vary between officials much, and what is clear for sure that this accident is the most last attempt to cover a usually occurring feature.
----
Radioactive Parcel Bound for U.S. Seized in Ukraine
September 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-ukraine-usa.html
KIEV (Reuters) - A radioactive package addressed to the United States has been seized at Ukraine's main airport in the capital Kiev, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
The regional emergencies ministry said the package, discovered Tuesday, was emitting radiation at a rate thousands of times higher than the norm in Kiev of 0.05 milliroentgens an hour.
``This material is being investigated,'' said Mykola Karabet, duty officer for the emergencies ministry in the Borispyl region of Kiev. ``We do not know what it is.
``It was a parcel in some luggage to be sent by air transport... There is no threat to human health or life.''
The United States has been on alert for suspect packages since Washington was all but shut down by letters containing anthrax powder in 2001.
In Ukraine, metal scrap and other objects from the Chernobyl region are often stopped at the borders of the former Soviet state for higher than normal radiation levels.
Large swathes of the country were left with high levels of radioactivity after Chernobyl's reactor number four exploded in 1986, in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.
Health officials have blamed that accident for thousands of deaths from radiation-linked illnesses and an increase in thyroid cancer.
-------- depleted uranium
Generational Casualties
The Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
By STAN GOFF
September 24, 2003
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/goff09242003.html
My grandson was born last December at Womack Army Medical Center, one of the finest medical facilties in the country now. The labor and delivery room was nicer than many hotel rooms. The care and attention was nonpareil. Military medical care -- now under idiotic pressure to privatize -- is proof that profit is often antithetical to the provision of quality services.
My grandson was born there because his father -- my son -- was entitled to this quality care as a member of the Army. My son is now languishing in a former palace along the Euphrates River, surrounded by millions of people who don't want him there, waiting for mail that takes four to five weeks to arrive, keeping an ear attuned for incoming mortars, and gazing at pictures of his son -- our grandson -- who will not know him when he returns.
My grandson is perfect, and I don't just say that because I have become a grandparent cliche -- which I have, with my office and home both converted into shrines full of baby photos. He is perfect in that he has all his assigned parts, they function in coordination with one another, and his growth and development are proceeding, as the medical folk say, normally. He was born with great lungs and the grip of a longshoreman, he never seems to get sick, and he seems very interested in all people, in all music, in squirrels, and in passing automobiles. He seems to go into a trance when a breeze blows on his face, and he chatters and blows raspberries when he is excited.
I am crazy in love with this child, spoill him shamelessly, have already dedicated a book to him, and I look forward to more grandchildren, having three more kids who are well into their reproductive years.
At a recent Congressional briefing organized by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, ten military family members, myself included, testified about our opposition to Bushfeld's War. Afterwards, during dinner together, one of the young military spouses told me that she and her husband, now stationed in Iraq, had made a decision not to have children. Since then, those if us involved with the Bring Them Home Now campaign are hearing this more and more from military couples. They are worried about depleted uranium.
My grandson is learning to walk, and he is immensely curious, which makes for a lot of vigilance and work. But he didn't require massive surgery to survive to his ninth month, nor does he require a battery of experts and specialists like he would if he were born without a thyroid gland, or if he required a drain inserted into his cranial vault, or if his digestive tract were disconnected.
This happens a lot more than it should to Iraqi children, and it may happen to American children born to parents now serving in Iraq. That's why many couples in the military are now deciding that they will not have children. Here is an excert from a letter on the Bring Them Home Now web site: "My husband and I have decided not to have children. We are afraid that something that we've been exposed to in Iraq may cause birth defects. This whole war has turned my life upside down and is even affecting my life years into the future."
For those who are not feint-hearted, you can visit this site where there are some very disturbing images of "extreme birth defects" in Iraq, that are occurring at alarming rates, lest anyone think this is an irrational fear being expressed by these military couples.
I am a big fan of these kinds of images, because the sense of decorum of our so-called press that excludes "offensive" images is a form of complicity. War is offensive. If we are to understand war, we need to see the bodies. People who support it should have to see it. Likewise, if you want to understand the reality of what is going on in the bodies of the troops, you need to see these terribly deformed children. We need to broadcast images of dead people, maimed people, deformed children, including our own dead and maimed and deformed, and we need to do it often. Anything else is denial.
The only people who seem to be denying that depleted uranium may actually be a significant causative agent in these hideous deformities are the governments of the United States and Great Britain, who use DU munitions in Iraq. What a surprise!
But Ross B. Mirkarimi, of the Arms Control Research Centre said, "Unborn children of the region [are] being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA." This was a report published in 1992 and largely applied (or so people thought) to Iraqis, so it didn't seem to matter here, even in many cases to those in the West who were studying DU. Let's face it, the slow murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, disproportionaly children, by sanctions not only did not arouse American outrage, the US Secretary of State, Madelaine Albright, said -- when confronted publicly with the numbers -- that it was worth it. (It remains utterly amazing to me that we still talk very little here about how racism underwrites American foreign and domestic policy. But the reality is, people often have to themselves come under attack before they wake up to reality and begin to recognize their shared humanity.)
The military knows damn well that depleted uranium, insecticide-impregnated uniforms, insect repellents, toxic smoke, and the questionable cocktail of inadequately tested immunizations they have given may be dangerous, alone or in combination. They are playing the odds that they can squeeze the necessary three, six, or twenty years out of a troop before all the biomedical chickens come home to roost, then -- with the able assistance of the entire US government -- deny that they are responsible.
No one I know of ever signed an enlistment contract that said "I herein surrender the integrity of my DNA." But more and more, it seems, that may be exactly what they've done. What shall I tell my son if he wants to become the father of a second child?
Show up in DC on October 25th, and show up mean and angry. Goddamn decorum! And mail the images from that website to president@whitehouse.gov.
----
Troops cleared over uranium scare
Wed 24 Sep 2003
Australia MSN 9
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/National/story_51928.asp
Negligible quantities of depleted uranium have shown up in tests of Australian servicemen who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, the government said.
Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale said all the personnel who went to Iraq and Afghanistan had been briefed on the potential health risks of depleted uranium before deployment then tested for exposure on their return.
"In view of the wide range of operational, occupational and environmental hazards, Australian Defence Force personnel deployed to the Middle East area of operations are currently offered a post-deployment medical screen as soon as practicable on return to Australia," she said in answer to a question on notice from Labor backbencher Arch Bevis.
"All tests conducted to date have been within the normal range."
A spokeswoman for Mrs Vale said urine samples provided by returned soldiers had been analysed by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).
She said ANSTO's reference range for so-called normal urine uranium concentrations in spot samples was below 50 parts per trillion.
"None of the currently tested defence urine samples are above that range," she said.
Depleted uranium is what's left over from normal uranium once most radioactive isotopes are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons.
Its extreme hardness makes it ideal for use as anti-tank projectiles and also as tank armour.
Depleted uranium munitions were used by US and British forces in the 1991 Gulf War and in the recent war against Iraq. It has low radioactivity but the dust is potentially toxic when ingested.
Australia acquired some depleted uranium ammunition when it purchased Phalanx missile defence gun systems for warships in the early 1980s but phased it out by 1986.
The spokeswoman for Mrs Vale said ANSTO did not report results as either negative or positive but only the actual levels from instrument printouts.
She said depleted uranium exposure was assessed by measuring total uranium excretion then looking at the ratio of the U-238 to the U-235 isotopes.
"They further advise that they are unsure as to the exact range of normal urinary uranium excretion in the Australian population. This is currently being studied," she said.
----
Serbia cleans up depleted uranium fired by NATO
September 24, 2003
(AP) Balkans Brief
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/world_&xml/&aspKath/world.asp?fdate=24/09/2003
BELGRADE - The remnants of more than 200 bullets made of depleted uranium, fired by NATO during the 1999 war in Kosovo, have been found in an area in southern Serbia, the environment minister was reported as saying late Monday. The depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal used by the US military during the 78-day NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, was found in an area of southern Serbia near the border with Kosovo, the environment minister, Andjelka Mihajlov, said. The bullets were found over the past days in an area near Presevo, about 280 kilometers (175 miles) southeast of Belgrade, after the government on September 12 commissioned nuclear and military experts to launch clean up efforts at four sites. Experts will begin cleaning up the other three sites next year.
-------- india / pakistan
PFBR - atoms of a power dream
Placid Rodriguez,
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2003/09/24/stories/2003092400900900.htm
Fast breeder test reactor at Kalpakkam...The return of nuclear power is inevitable the world over. When that happens India can be seller of the breeder technology rather than buyer.
"Success means accomplishments as a result of our own efforts and abilities. Proper preparation is the key to our success. Our acts can be no wiser than our thinking. Our thinking can be no wiser than our thoughts. Our thoughts can be no wiser than our understanding"- George S. Clason
WHEN I was the Director of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) between 1992 and 2000, a question often put to me was: "Why is India working on a technology that all the leading countries have given up, or at least slowed down?"
My reply was: "The return of nuclear power is inevitable, and this would include breeders. When that happens, for a change, we can be sellers of technology rather than buyers."
"That is a dream" would be the response to that. But, then, as the song in the film South Pacific goes: "If you don't have a dream, how are you going to have your dream come true?!"
When I heard news of the Cabinet approval for the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), my joy was boundless, arising from my firm conviction about the following:
Any vision for a "developed India" should envisage a minimum total electricity generation of 450 GWe; even this total would only mean approximately 1,500 kWh per capita consumption (assuming a stabilised population of 1.2 billion in the country) much lower than the current world average of 2,500 kWh per capita, let alone the 10,000 kWh per capita in the US and Western Europe.
To achieve the above and, at the same time, ensure energy independence for the nation, nuclear power through the breeder route is inevitable. Energy independence of a nation implies that a major part of the energy requirement is met from resources within the country.
In the absence of any other new technology, FBRs will become relevant and necessary for the whole world. When that happens, India can be a major supplier of this technology.
Let me now substantiate the above three points. The current installed electricity generation in India of 100 GW is distributed among the different resources as follows: Coal: 60GW; hydro: 25 GW; gas: 10GW; nuclear: 2.7 GW; diesel: 1GW; and non-conventional: 1.3 GW.
We have exploited only one-fourth of the hydro-electric potential so far; most of what remains to be exploited is in the North-East and in the Himalayan sub-regions of Northern India, far away from the industrial areas. Future additions to hydro-electricity will be mainly from mini- or micro-hydroelectric plants.
For hydrocarbons, India is already dependent on imports. Coal, which is the major resource for electricity generation, will be the major source of new capacity additions in the near future. But this cannot go on indefinitely. As coal is also needed for non-power (metallurgical) applications, indigenous coal resources cannot sustain an installed capacity of 450 GW for more than 60 years.
Non-conventional energy (NCE) will undoubtedly make increasing contributions in the decades to come. But there are serious limitations to the growth of electricity generation from these sources: Their state of development of technology is relevant only to small plants (a few MW) and they are not economically viable yet.
The potential for solar power in India has been estimated to be as high as 600,000 GW-yr. But with the currently available technologies the minimum solar cell area required to tap even one tenth of this energy is half the land area of the country. For a solar thermal power plant, the maximum plant capacity achieved so far is 50MW.
Thus, while all sources of energy have to be exploited optimally, to provide energy security on a long-term basis, large-scale development of nuclear power is inevitable.
The importance of the fast breeder for India is in the effective multiplication of uranium resources. India's uranium resources can generate electricity of about 340 GW-yr from the 0.7 per cent of U-235 in natural uranium. Through the breeder route (which breeds Pu-239 from the 99.3 per cent of U-238 in natural uranium), the energy potential increases fifty-fold to about 16,000 GW-yr.
India has five times more thorium than uranium and the energy potential from the thorium resources is as high as 200,000 GW-yr. In fact, a point not appreciated by many is that without breeders, nuclear power from indigenous resources will have no rationale on the basis of energy independence for the nation, as the installed capacity without breeding can at best be 50GWe.
Nuclear power will return globally
Now let me put forward my arguments for the conviction that sooner or later nuclear energy (and the fast breeder) will stage a comeback globally:
The World Energy Council (WEC) statement 2000 outlines 10 policy actions, one of the options being, "Keep all energy options open".
Under this option, it says: "Nuclear power is of fundamental importance for most WEC members because it is the only energy supply that already has a very large and well-diversified resource (and potentially unlimited resource if breeders are used), is quasi-indigenous, does not emit greenhouse gases, and has either favourable or at most slightly unfavourable economics. In fact, should the climate change threat become a reality, nuclear is the only existing power technology which could replace coal in base load."
Here are some hard statistics to support the above arguments:
The current primary energy use in the whole world is around 12 TWy (Tera Watt years, 1 Tera Watt = 1000GW), of which electricity accounts for 1.3 TWy.
The projections for 2050 is a minimum (low-growth scenario) of 20 TWy for primary energy use and 2.7 TWy for total electricity generation; for a high growth scenario, the figures would be as high as 85 TWy for primary energy and 5.3 TWy for electricity generation (World Energy Council 2000 projections).
The main point from these numbers is that in the absence of the discovery of new energy resources and emergence of new technologies for electricity generation, nuclear energy is bound to make a comeback; even with a minimum contribution of 1 TWy from nuclear, the return of the Breeder becomes inevitable within 45 years.
There is unity among all forecasts about the emergence of a "hydrogen energy economy". In such a scenario, hydrogen as a clean energy source will replace fossil fuels (note, also, that they will get depleted soon) as the major primary energy source, particularly for transportation.
What is not appreciated is that while hydrogen (in water) is abundant, we need energy to produce it. There will be a definite role for nuclear energy in the hydrogen economy that appears certain to emerge in the second half of this century, if not earlier.
Nuclear radiation could be a method for hydrogen production by dissociation of water. In other methods, such as thermal and electrochemical dissociation of water too, the source of energy could be nuclear.
Are we ready for PFBR construction?
This question has also been addressed to me often of late, and I have been emphatic in giving an affirmative answer.
In my opinion, management of the technology of fast breeder reactor in India is a fascinating story of exercises in technology options, technology acquisitions, technology absorption and adaptation, upgradation and innovation in technology and, above all, building infrastructure and indigenous capabilities in research, design, engineering, materials, manufacturing and fabrication.
The preparedness achieved to launch PFBR is unparalleled in the history of any other technology story in our country.
Let me just narrate the efforts in development of the manufacturing technology.
As part of PFBR technology development, Indian manufacturers have been involved in developing the special tooling and in creating facilities to manufacture the PFBR components. Items taken up for technology development were:
# Components whose fabrication or manufacture was considered difficult and intricate, and those to be made in the country for the first time.
# All components that need to be tested in sodium.
# Prototype of a component that was needed in quality more than one.
# For a large component and one of a kind, a petal or sector.
These exercises in manufacturing technology development have given valuable inputs for finalising the manufacturing, fabrication and inspection procedures and in modifying specified tolerances and procedures on a realistic basis, wherever necessary.
A concrete benefit from these efforts is that the IGCAR teams and the vendors have both travelled up the `learning curve'; other benefits are the in-sodium and other simulated tests on the prototypes to confirm performance characteristics (and to modify design, if necessary) and the availability of modules or sectors of components for developing in-service-inspection techniques.
FBR cost
The cost of construction of the PFBR is Rs 2,800 crore (overnight cost, at February 2002 prices). At 62.8 per cent plant load factor, the unit energy cost for a construction schedule of seven years is estimated at Rs 3.22, with debt-equity ratio of 1:4. Construction delayed by one year will increase the energy cost to Rs 3.3, and by two years to Rs 3.4. Thus, it is seen that the FBR will be, cost-wise, competitive with other energy technologies.
But this is the cost or price of the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) PFBR. When Mr Y. K. Alagh was Minister of State for Science and Technology, at one of my meetings with him, when the PFBR was discussed, the astute economist he is, advised me that we should be talking of the cost of an FBR as we travel up the learning curve and go to series production of a number of reactors.
It was interesting to hear from him how the cost of the steam generator for the PHWR manufactured by BHEL was brought down by him, as the arbitrator, when he was the Chairman, Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices, in a dispute between BHEL and NPCIL. He mentioned that while BHEL took 1,679 days to manufacture the first PHWR steam generator, the manufacturing time of the eighth steam generator came down to 258 days, and this was the basis for the cost reduction award given by the Bureau.
In fact, this aspect of cost reduction, as we build more fast breeder reactors, was discussed in my 1996 Brahm Prakash Memorial Lecture (Indian Institute of Metals, Bangalore Chapter) and the data were readily available for discussion with the Minister (See bar diagram).
If the capital cost of a FOAK PFBR is 100, building a replica will bring down the cost to 71.7. The cost comes down with series construction to 64 for a reactor with two plants on one site and 59.2 per reactor with four plants on one site and somewhat stabilising at 57.7 per reactor for 12 plants on three sites.
It is this stabilised cost of FBR that one should be talking about (and not the cost of the FOAK PFBR), when the cost is compared with other mature, stabilised technologies.
Is it a gamble?
In R&D, and in technology development, one cannot expect 100 per cent success. One must be ready to accept both successes and failures. But when a techno-commercial demonstration project such as the PFBR is taken up for implementation, it cannot be a gamble.
It is the culmination of the vision and foresight of the founding fathers, and decades of dedicated hard work and toil of thousands of engineers and technicians, and it is for everyone involved to resolve and work towards its success.
I am sure of the success because there is a high level of confidence in FBR technology due to the following reasons:
Satisfactory operation of FBTR
In depth R&D efforts in support of PFBR design.
Incorporation of feedback from operation experience of other fast breeder reactors into PFBR design.
Review of design by organisations in France and Russian Federation.
Efforts put in by industries towards manufacturing technology development of NSSS components.
Safety review by AERB.
Availability of conventional components, such as turbines, which are similar to those in a conventional fossil-fired power plant.
In my opinion, no other project of this magnitude in our country has gone through the kind of research, development, design and engineering efforts, and manufacturing technology development exercises that have accomplished a high level of preparedness, before its actual launch.
(The author is a former Director of IGCAR, Kalpakkam.)
-------- iran
Israeli military chief warns against Iranian non-conventional weapons
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Sep 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030924154826.vzatqq6b.html
Israel's military chief of staff issued a warning Wednesday over the danger represented by non-conventional weapons of "an irresponsible" state such as Iran.
"The fact that a country like Iran, an enemy (of Israel) and which is particularly irresponsible, has equipped itself with non-conventional weapons is worrying," General Moshe Yaalon told military radio.
"The combination in this case of a non-conventional regime with non-conventional weapons is a concern," Yaalon said in an interview to mark the Jewish new year.
"At the moment there is ongoing international diplomatic activity to deal with this threat and it would be good if it succeeds.
"But if that is not the case we would consider our options," the general added.
Israel has come to regard Iran as its chief military threat since the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
It warned last month that a new ballistic missile that was officially inaugurated by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei represented a threat to the whole of the Middle East.
Iran put on show its new Shahab-3 ballistic missiles in a military parade in Tehran on Monday, with the rockets sporting slogans including "Israel must be wiped off the map".
The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has imposed an October 31 deadline on Iran to prove it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons and also urged it to suspend enriching uranium, which the United States claims could be used to make nuclear bombs.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said late last month that Iran's pursuit of a nuclear capability is a "nightmare scenario" which demands immediate international action.
"Iran is fast approaching the point of no return in its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons capability," Shalom said.
"It's urgent that the international community act to ensure that this nightmare scenario is prevented."
--------
Iran Refines Stance on Nuclear Program
Envoy to IAEA Says Access Negotiable
By Ali Akbar Dareini
Associated Press
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54721-2003Sep23.html
TEHRAN, Sept. 23 -- Iran remains willing to negotiate with the U.N. nuclear agency on unfettered access for inspectors but will scale back its cooperation with the agency in the meantime, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency said today.
Ali Akbar Salehi had announced Monday that Iran would cut back its cooperation with the IAEA in response to the agency's Oct. 31 deadline for Tehran to prove that its atomic programs were peaceful. Tehran said the move was politically motivated.
Diplomats had said the Iranian decision did not bode well for efforts to resolve the nuclear dispute, but Salehi said today that his comments were being misinterpreted.
"We have decided to fulfill our obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and not beyond that," Salehi said.
"It doesn't mean that we are rejecting the additional protocol or are not prepared to talk on that," Salehi said. The additional protocol would provide IAEA inspectors with unrestricted access to any site in Iran.
Salehi appeared to suggest that Iran's latest position would confine its cooperation with the IAEA to the letter of existing agreements while at the same time negotiating its acceptance of the additional protocol.
The United States has accused Iran of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program and wants the IAEA to declare Tehran in violation of the treaty.
Tehran insists its nuclear programs are designed only to generate electricity.
In Vienna, a spokesman for the IAEA, Mark Gwozdecky, said the agency had heard "nothing official from the Iranian government."
"We've put everything in place to make it possible for Iran to comply with the board of governors' resolution," Gwozdecky said, referring to the deadline. "We hope that Iran will do its part in providing the accelerated cooperation that will be necessary for us to resolve the outstanding questions around the nuclear programs."
-------
Iran Says It Is Not Able to Make Nukes
September 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iran-Nuclear.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Iran is able to mine and enrich its own uranium and can develop its atomic energy program independent on its own, but it does not have the technology to develop nuclear weapons, Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday.
Kamal Kharrazi also said Tehran will ``hopefully not'' withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as North Korea did. Last week, a leading hardline Iranian cleric said Tehran should withdraw from the nuclear arms control treaty.
``No, we do not have the technology to make a nuclear weapon,'' Kharrazi told a conference on Eurasian security and economic development held in conjunction with the U.N. General Assembly.
``We have the technology to enrich uranium. There is a difference between having the technology to enrich uranium needed for a power plant as fuel, and the technology to make a bomb.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, Austria, has given Tehran until Oct. 31 to prove its atomic energy program is peaceful. Failure to do so means the issue could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible enforcement action.
Kharrazi accused the IAEA board of buckling to political pressure from the United States.
The IAEA said traces of enriched uranium that its inspectors found at Kalay-e-Electric Co. in west Tehran, which raised Western suspicions of a weapons program, needed more investigation to determine their origin.
Kharrazi said that before the IAEA reached a final conclusion, Washington rammed through the IAEA board a demand for Iran to prove it had no weapons.
President Bush declared in his 2002 State of the Union speech that Iran was part of an ``axis of evil'' with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
With the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq toppled by U.S.-led military forces and North Korea a pariah state after it declared that it had a nuclear weapons program, Iran is worried that it might be the next country to face U.S. action.
U.S. analysts believe Iran is years away from a nuclear weapon, even with significant foreign assistance.
Kharrazi said Iran had developed high-speed ballistic centrifuges on its own to separate and enrich uranium from its own mines, and denied the technology was imported from Russia.
He said Tehran and Moscow will soon sign an agreement to return to Russia enriched uranium provided to develop the Iranian atomic program. But he added that Iran will be able to enrich its own uranium.
Kharrazi acknowledged that the capability to produce nuclear weapons would be a source of pride for Iran, but insisted that ``Iran is pursuing enrichment technology for peaceful use.''
On Tuesday, Iran's representative to the IAEA said Tehran remains willing to negotiate for IAEA inspectors to enjoy unfettered access to its energy plants but, in the meantime, it will scale back its cooperation with the U.N. watchdog.
``We have decided to fulfill our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and not beyond that,'' Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's representative to the IAEA, told The Associated Press.
This would limit IAEA inspections to Iran's declared nuclear facilities.
In August, Iran allowed inspectors to visit the Kalay-e-Electric Co. after they were turned away two months before when they came to take environmental samples. Iran allegedly tested centrifuges, which are used to process uranium, at the site.
Kharrazi reaffirmed Wednesday that Iran is ready to negotiate with the IAEA the additional protocol allowing complete access to all nuclear sites. But he said the Bush administration would not accept any amount of proof that Iran's atomic program was peaceful.
When asked whether Iran might withdraw entirely from the treaty, as North Korea did before declaring its weapons program, Kharrazi replied only: ``Hopefully not.''
``We especially agree that the whole region should be free from nuclear weapons,'' he said.
--------
Iran Denies Having Nuclear Weapons Technology
September 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear-minister.html
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on Wednesday denied that Iran has the technology to produce nuclear weapons and reaffirmed that Tehran would never abandon its nuclear programs.
``No, we do not have the technology to produce nuclear weapons. We have the technology to enrich uranium. This is a difference between having the technology to enrich uranium needed for power plant as fuel and the technology to actually make a bomb,'' he told a meeting on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly.
With Iran under a deadline set by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to prove by Oct. 31 that its nuclear aims are peaceful, Kharrazi gave little ground.
Tehran is willing to negotiate on stricter inspections with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ``but the problem is the Americans believe (that) is not enough,'' he said.
Asked if Iran would consider abandoning its nuclear activities, Kharrazi, speaking at an event sponsored by the Business Council for the U.N., said: ``No. No way. No reason.''
The IAEA, under U.S. pressure, has raised concerns about Iran's nuclear aims and given Tehran until the end of October to dispel doubts it is secretly developing nuclear arms.
The agency has also urged Tehran to sign and implement an Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty which would allow snap inspections of any suspected site.
CHIRAC PRESSURE
French President Jacques Chirac, in an interview with USA Today, said if Iran ``agrees to all the necessary controls'' he would back Tehran's development of a civilian nuclear program.
But if not, Chirac said he would support a U.S. push to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council where sanctions might be imposed.
Underscoring their charge that Iran is developing arms, the Americans say the Islamic republic does not need nuclear energy because it is one of the world's major oil producing countries. Hence, its nuclear programs must be for weapons.
But Kharrazi said that with an annual growth rate approaching 8 percent, Iran is using up its reserves and ``we need to diversify our sources of energy.''
The United States severed diplomatic ties with Iran in 1979 when Islamic fundamentalist student revolutionaries held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Former President Bill Clinton made tentative steps toward resuming contacts, but President Bush has lumped Iran in an ``axis of evil'' along with Iraq and North Korea.
Kharrazi said Washington did not appreciate Iran's help in the U.S.-led war to oust from Afghanistan the al Qaeda militant group, blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
He said improved ties would depend on ``reciprocal'' cooperation and renewed Iran's call for Washington to release $10 billion in frozen Iranian assets and lift U.S. sanctions.
The Bush administration's ``mindset ... has to be corrected. Iran is an anchor of stability in that region. Why do they have this mindset toward Iran which is very negative?'' he asked.
In a speech before answering questions, Kharrazi called the U.S. occupation of Iraq a ``mistake (which) if left uncorrected may contribute to undermining the moderate mainstream in the Islamic world.''
``The ouster of Saddam (Hussein) was a welcome development, but the situation in Iraq and the whole region could be much worse if the U.S. chooses to stay the current course.''
-------- iraq / inspections
Inspectors' report will find no WMD in Iraq: US source
LONDON (AFP)
Sep 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030924175915.xm0p6xp1.html
US and British arms inspectors will report next month that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, the BBC said Wednesday, quoting an unnamed US government source.
The Iraq Survey Group, a 1,400-strong Anglo-American team, will report that not even "minute" amounts of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons material have been unearthed, according to the BBC television show "Daily Politics".
In the US, the Central Intelligence Agency said an interim report by former weapons inspector David Kay was not expected to reach any firm conclusions or rule anything in or out.
Iraq's refusal to give up its alleged weapons of mass destruction was cited by London and Washington as a main reason for going to war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq in March.
No delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction and no laboratories involved in developing such weapons were found, according to the BBC report, which quoted a source within the administration of US President George W. Bush.
The BBC reported that Kay's team of scientists, military and intelligence experts did come across some depleted uranium samples in a cave north of Baghdad but reckoned they could have been there since the 1991 Gulf war.
The report will also say it is highly unlikely that any such weapons were squirreled out of Iraq to countries like Syria before the war began, according to the same source.
But the document will, it was reported, include computer programmes and files and paperwork and pictures suggesting that Saddam's regime was developing a weapons of mass destruction programme.
The BBC said that although it had not seen Kay's report, which had not yet been finalised for publication and could be altered, their source had been told of the content of some key passages, which are not expected to be substantively altered.
The BBC said it had also learnt from another source that US intelligence is being forced to conclude that much of what it and British intelligence were told by Iraqi defectors before the war was bogus or misleading.
"It looks like they were telling us what we wanted to hear," the unnamed source had said, according to the BBC.
----
No Conclusions Likely in Iraq CIA Report
September 24, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Weapons-Hunt.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A preliminary report by the CIA's chief weapons hunter in Iraq will not make any claim of finding weapons of mass destruction, officials at the intelligence agency said Wednesday.
The officials declined to say what specific findings David Kay might include in his upcoming report but said it is not expected to reach any conclusions about Iraq's alleged weapons program.
The Bush administration has not announced finding any weapons of mass destruction, and U.S. and British officials have not disclosed any discoveries that would validate most of their prewar assertions about Iraqi weapons. Those assertions drove their case for invasion and toppling of President Saddam Hussein's government.
Kay, a former U.N. weapons inspector, is the CIA adviser working with teams in Iraq searching for evidence of chemical and biological weapons, programs to make more, and prohibited missiles and nuclear weapons programs.
Some Pentagon officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have said that weapons hunters have found what they interpret as evidence of Iraqi preparations to secretly produce chemical and biological weapons.
That evidence is primarily drawn from documents and interviews with Iraqi officials, the officials said. It suggests plans for weapons production that was to take place primarily at ``dual-use'' manufacturing facilities inside Iraq, the U.S. officials said.
These are buildings with an overt, legitimate purpose, such as making pesticides or pharmaceuticals, but their equipment also can be used to make weapons.
The officials did not know whether searchers had found any evidence that weapons production had actually taken place at these sites.
Two other postwar discoveries in Iraq -- trailers that are suspected biological weapons factories and some buried parts from Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear program -- remain contentious.
Some in the U.S. intelligence community believe the trailers were for hydrogen production for weather balloons. U.N. experts interpret the unearthed parts as evidence Saddam never attempted to reconstitute Iraq's nuclear programs after the first Gulf War.
Kay is expected to present his findings to CIA Director George J. Tenet and other officials soon.
``Dr. Kay is still receiving information from the field, and this will be just the first progress report, an interim report, and we expect it will reach no firm conclusions, nor will it rule anything in or out,'' said CIA spokesman Bill Harlow.
He said it has not been determined how much, if any, of Kay's report would be made public. After the report is complete, Kay is expected to return to Iraq to continue his investigation.
Administration officials in recent days had sought to lower expectations that Kay's report would put to rest ongoing questions about whether Iraq had prohibited weapons and programs.
On Fox News Channel's ``The O'Reilly Factor'' on Wednesday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said: ``David Kay has miles of documents to go through. He has hundreds of people to interview. ... He's going to put together the picture.''
``I await the report eagerly from Mr. Kay as does the international community,'' said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. ``I'm not going to comment on drafts I may have or haven't seen. What we are looking for is published reports and they will be made available in due course.''
After a summer visit to Iraq, Republican senators said U.S. searchers had uncovered solid evidence of weapons programs. But Democrats on the same trip said the evidence was not definitive. No one provided details.
In August, Kay suggested a breakthrough was close but added that the U.S. government would proceed slowly before going public with any discoveries, to make sure its analysis was sound.
--------
Inquiry Unlikely to Report Finding Iraq Arms
September 24, 2003
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-usa-wmd.html
UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An eagerly awaited U.S. inquiry is expected to report finding ``documentary evidence'' that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons programs but no proof of actual arms, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.
The expected finding in a report by David Kay, who served as a U.N. nuclear inspector in Iraq in 1991, would be a blow to President Bush who, before ordering the invasion of Iraq last March, argued Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat that justified war.
The failure to turn up any such weapons has eroded U.S. credibility as Bush now seeks greater help from the international community to stabilize and rebuild Iraq.
The Bush administration has not given up, however, and seems to be pinning its hopes on Iraq's former defense minister who was given ``effective'' immunity from prosecution when he surrendered to U.S. forces last week.
Washington believes former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed, seen at Saddam's side in what is thought to have been the ousted dictator's last public appearance, could provide significant information on Iraqi weapons activities, the senior U.S. official told Reuters.
The official, speaking anonymously, said other ``lower level guys who were technical functionaries in Iraq's weapons programs'' were also given immunity and have been assisting Kay in his Iraqi arms inquiry.
MOST WANTED LIST
Ahmed, number 27 on Washington's wanted list of Iraqi fugitives, turned himself in to U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul on Sept. 19 after weeks of negotiations.
``I don't know what he's going to say, but he's knowledgeable about what their actual weapons capacity is and he is going to be very important. I think that's one reason why, when they agreed to accept this surrender, they, in effect, agreed not to prosecute,'' the U.S. official said.
``It's more and more apparent the weapons were either very hidden, and we haven't found the people who know where they are,'' the official added, or Saddam kept an arms production capacity that could have been revived once U.N. inspectors left the country.
U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters that reports about Kay's findings were premature and cautioned against jumping to ``definitive conclusions.''
It was uncertain when Kay, who was at the CIA this week working on the report, would brief members of the U.S. Congress, but some sources said it could be as early as next week.
U.S. forces have been searching unsuccessfully for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq for more than five months. The Iraq Survey Group, headed by Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has led the search since June, with the guidance of Kay, a CIA adviser.
The report ``generally will be about chemical and biological weapons and I think he's going to find evidence, documentary evidence, statements by Iraqi scientists and technicians, that they had chemical and biological weapons production programs,'' the senior U.S. official said.
``Whether they will find or disclose anything on the weapons themselves, I doubt,'' he added.
The CIA described the report as an initial document that will ``reach no firm conclusions.''
OPTIONS OPEN
``Dr. Kay is still receiving information from the field. It will be just the first progress report and we expect that it will reach no firm conclusions, nor will it rule anything in or out,'' CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said.
When Kay briefed lawmakers in July, he said there could be ``surprises'' uncovered. But a congressional aide told Reuters: ``I'm unaware of any major surprises.''
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a chief U.S. ally in the Iraq war, has also come under attack over the weapons issue.
At the U.N. General Assembly, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed news of Kay's likely findings as ``speculation on an as yet unpublished report.'' He refused to say if he had seen a draft.
Straw said the case for military action was debated in the United Nations last year when ``the whole of the international community came to a unanimous agreement that Iraq posed a threat to international peace and security because of its development of WMD and its unlawful missile systems.''
``And if people want evidence, they don't have to wait for Dr. Kay's report. What they can do is look at the volumes of reports from the (U.N.) weapons inspectors, going back over a dozen years, including the final report'' last March.
-------- japan
U.S. withdrew opposition to Tokai plant
Declassified documents show that Carter changed mind on nuclear facility
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030924a3.htm
WASHINGTON (Kyodo) In the interests of bilateral ties, the United States in 1977 decided against telling Japan to refrain from operating a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, according to declassified U.S. government documents.
Then President Jimmy Carter had previously advocated halting the launch of operations at the plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.
But Mike Mansfield, who had just assumed the post of ambassador to Japan, convinced him to reverse this decision.
Mansfield told Carter that halting operations at the plant, operated by the now-defunct Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., would have a detrimental impact on future Japan-U.S. relations, the documents indicate.
A telegram sent by Mansfield urged Washington to reach a prompt compromise on the matter.
A memo handwritten by Carter on the margins of the telegram instructed then Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to tell Mansfield that the president would decide quickly on a compromise plan and that it was all right to ask then Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda to present alternatives.
The documents were declassified at the behest of Don Oberdorfer, a former Washington Post diplomatic correspondent who has published a biography on Mansfield, titled "Senator Mansfield."
Oberdorfer said he had confirmed the contents of communications involving Mansfield and Japan in interviews conducted with those familiar with the situation.
Many of the declassified documents show that, on the basis of suggestions made by Mansfield, the Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations treated Japan -- as it grew into an economic power -- as an increasingly important political ally.
In April 1977, Carter unveiled a new nuclear power policy emphasizing nonproliferation. It promoted research on nuclear fuel recycling without the threat of the technology being transferred to military use.
He opposed the launching of the reprocessing plant by Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., the predecessor of the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, saying it was uneconomical.
At the time, construction of the facility was close to completion amid protests from local residents.
But the Carter administration's real fear centered on the extraction of plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Fearing that the situation could rock the bilateral relationship, Mansfield urged the president in July that year to compromise, according to the documents.
The ambassador said it would not look good for the U.S. to allow Britain, France and West Germany to reprocess nuclear fuel but to show a lack of trust in Japan in this regard.
He said that Washington should consider that the energy situation was a vital matter for resource-poor Japan.
The documents also indicate that Mansfield asked Carter not to pressure Fukuda over bilateral trade friction in a memo handed to the president prior to the leaders' summit talks in 1978.
Mansfield, a former Senate majority leader renowned for his contributions to Japan-U.S. ties, served as ambassador to Japan until 1988.
He continued to be a vital link between the two nations thereafter. He died in October 2001 at the age of 98.
----
Kawaguchi eyes bigger SDF role
Minister considers 'other ways to interpret' Constitution
By KANAKO TAKAHARA, Staff writer
The Japan Times:
Sept. 24, 2003
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030924a2.htm
CABINET INTERVIEW
The government should pursue a more flexible interpretation of the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 and allow the Self-Defense Forces to make a greater contribution to global peacekeeping efforts, according to Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi.
Yoriko Kawaguchi
"I think we should continue to place importance on Article 9. But perhaps there are other ways to interpret it," Kawaguchi told journalists shortly after her reappointment Monday.
At present, SDF dispatches overseas are limited.
Under a new antiterrorism law, SDF units have provided logistic support to the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. Another new law has paved the way for troops to be sent to help in Iraq's postwar reconstruction.
The peacekeeping operations law meanwhile sets tight parameters on Japan's engagement in U.N.-led military activities on foreign soil.
Despite pressure from Washington for a prompt dispatch of SDF troops to Iraq, Kawaguchi said Japan would consider the timing and nature of support activities following the return of a government fact-finding team that left for Iraq on Sept. 14.
Despite speculation that she would be replaced, Kawaguchi, a nonpolitician and former trade ministry bureaucrat, retained her post when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reshuffled his Cabinet on Monday.
Kawaguchi was serving as environment minister when she was named foreign minister in February 2002, following the sacking of the popular Makiko Tanaka amid a row within the ministry.
On the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents, Kawaguchi said the government still plans to do its utmost to resolve the matter, despite the replacement of Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe.
Abe has worked for a long time on behalf of the relatives of those believed to have been spirited away to the reclusive state.
Last fall, Pyongyang owned up to the abductions and allowed five surviving abductees to return to Japan.
It refused to allow their offspring or the American husband of one of the five to accompany them.
The fate of several other missing Japanese is still at issue, with Pyongyang's accounts having left many dissatisfied.
The five returnees and their relatives have voiced concern that the government may become less eager to resolve the issue following Abe's appointment as secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Abe now holds no government post.
"The government is united in its effort to achieve the same goal as the families," Kawaguchi said. "I consider everyone a comrade."
As for North Korea's nuclear threat, she voiced hope that a six-nation framework involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia can clarify how Tokyo can contribute to getting Pyongyang to abandon its atomic ambitions.
"If we have to worry about (the kind of support Japan should provide), that is a happy situation," Kawaguchi said. "But we are still far from such a stage."
Kawaguchi brushed aside accusations that her lack of leadership has allowed staff within the Prime Minister's Official Residence -- led by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda -- to take the initiative in terms of Japan's diplomacy.
"Diplomacy should be carried out with the prime minister and his staff at the center, while the Foreign Ministry works to follow the policy," she said.
-------- korea
S.Korea's Roh Links Iraq Request to N.Korea Talks
September 25, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - President Roh Moo-hyun, facing hostility at home to a U.S. request for military help in Iraq, has linked the deployment of South Korean troops to progress on defusing the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
The United States has asked South Korea for combat troops to help ease the burden of stabilizing post-war Iraq. A South Korean newspaper quoted a U.S. official as saying Washington would like 5,000 troops and a decision by mid-October.
South Korean officials say a major factor is stability on the peninsula, where 37,000 U.S. troops help deter the North.
The United States and North Korea are at loggerheads over the North's nuclear program. They took part in six-way talks with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea last month but a second round is not expected before November.
In comments that could raise eyebrows in Washington, Roh connected the talks and the request publicly for the first time, although South Korean officials have made the link privately.
``Isn't it difficult for the country to accept the dispatch of our troops abroad in such an uncertain situation as we don't know how the six-way talks will go?'' Roh asked reporters on Wednesday. His office published the comments on Thursday.
``We need something predictable about stability on the Korean peninsula,'' he said. ``For that, the North Korean and U.S. stances are crucial.''
LINKAGE PLAYED DOWN
South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun played down the linkage at a briefing on Thursday.
``The government hasn't officially discussed the troop issue in connection with North Korea's nuclear program and the six-way talks and I haven't heard that such talks are under way even from the National Security Council,'' he said, referring to the powerful group that advises Roh on security policy.
He said North Korea had used pretexts in the past to delay negotiations but it was unlikely in this case.
Jeong has said he will convey updated views at North-South talks in Pyongyang next month. Foreign ministers have been meeting during the U.N. General Assembly session.
North Korea took a one-two swipe at the United States on Thursday for its policy toward Pyongyang with editorials in the main newspapers, Rodong Sinmun and Minju Joson.
Rodong Sinmun said U.S. talk of impending policy changes was a trite trick. Minju Joson said Washington was becoming isolated.
``The U.S. would be well advised to stop such foolish an act as digging its own grave, make a bold switchover in its anachronistic hostile policy toward the DPRK and buckle down to solving the issues between the DPRK and the U.S. including the nuclear issue,'' it said.
The North's KCNA news agency carried the editorials. DPRK are the initials of the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Roh told North-South experts on Wednesday South Korea would help boost aid to the North if it ditched its nuclear plans.
Jeong said economic cooperation, which is slowly gathering pace, could help ease tension across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that has bisected the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.
A more moving aspect of inter-Korean ties has been family reunions. The latest three-day round ended at the North's Mount Kumgang resort on Thursday. A group of 100 South Koreans met 246 North Korean relatives. Some 8,051 people have been reunited, albeit briefly, since the first such event in August 2000.
-------- missile defense
Push for missile defense could lead to risk: US Congress report
www.chinaview.cn
2003-09-24
(Xinhuanet)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-09/24/content_1098194.htm
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The Bush administration's push to deploy a 22-billion-dollar missile defense system by this time next year could lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures, Congressional investigators have said.
In a 40-page report released Tuesday, the General Accounting Office (GAO) said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if theycan handle the task, often described as trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.
The report, cited by The New York Times Wednesday, said an early warning radar system to be deployed in Alaska for tracking enemy missiles had not been adequately tested for that role.
The overall uncertainty has produced "a greater likelihood thatcritical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the report said. If failures ensue, the Pentagon "may haveto spend additional funds in an attempt to identify and correct problems by September 2004 or accept a less capable system."
The GAO report said the Pentagon expected to spend 21.8 billiondollars on the system between 1997 and 2009.
President George W. Bush announced in last December the plan todeploy a preliminary system of six rocket intercepts in Alaska andfour in California by the end of September 2004.
Critics have said the timetable is devised to yield a missile defense system before the 2004 election so that Bush can point to it as a fulfilled campaign pledge.
----
Pentagon 'pushing missile defence system too fast'
By Peter Spiegel in London
September 24 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059480089152&p=1012571727162
The cost of the US's national missile defence system is likely to spiral higher, and the system's effectiveness could be impaired, because the Pentagon is pushing to get the programme operational by the end of next year, congressional investigators say.
The General Accounting Office said this week that introducing untested technologies before they were fully developed could drive the programme well beyond Pentagon estimates.
The GAO report said the Missile Defence Agency had developed and tested only two of 10 vital technologies needed for the ground-based shield, to be built in Alaska and California. The MDA maintains it will have five more ready by the middle of next year, but the GAO found they would be integrated into the final system before they had been fully demonstrated.
"Making a decision to begin system integration of a capability before the maturity of all critical technologies have been demonstrated increases the programme's cost, schedule and performance risks," the GAO said.
In December, President George W. Bush ordered the Pentagon to field a ground-based missile shield in Alaska, where six interceptors will be built, and central California, with four. The system has been described as limited, but Mr Bush's decision significantly accelerated a controversial programme developed piecemeal since Ronald Reagan first proposed a space-based anti-missile system in the 1980s.
The GAO report said the stepped-up schedule proposed by Mr Bush was largely responsible for the premature integration, a point the administration has quietly conceded in budget documents. "As a result, there is greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests," the GAO said, which could force the Pentagon to spend more funds than expected or "accept a less capable system".
The Defense Department has budgeted approximately $10bn (?8.7bn, £6bn) a year over the next five years to fund the missile defence programme, and congressional appropriators last week approved $9.1bn to be spent next year on the system. The portions in Alaska and central California will cost an estimated $21.8bn through to 2009, $6.2bn of which has already been spent.
The GAO report singled out a radar being developed to track incoming missiles as a particular problem. The "Cobra Dane" radar is currently used to collect data on some Russian test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, but does no "real-time" data processing or communications.
In order to fit into the missile defence system by the end of next year, it must be upgraded to perform both functions, a task that will require significant software changes, which will be completed only shortly before the entire system is to go online.
"Unless the current test programme is modified, the only opportunities for demonstrating Cobra Dane in an operational environment would come from flight tests of foreign missiles," the GAO said.
----
Report Sees Risks in Push for Missile Defense
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
September 24, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/politics/24MISS.html
The Bush administration's push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by this time next year could lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads, Congressional investigators said yesterday.
The General Accounting Office, in a 40-page report, said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task, often described as trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.
The report especially criticized plans to adapt an early warning radar system in Alaska to the more demanding job of tracking enemy missiles, saying it had not been adequately tested for that role.
The overall uncertainty, the investigators said, has produced "a greater likelihood that critical technologies will not work as intended in planned flight tests." If failures ensue, they added, the Pentagon "may have to spend additional funds in an attempt to identify and correct problems by September 2004 or accept a less capable system."
Dr. Philip E. Coyle III, a former head of weapons testing at the Pentagon, said in an interview that the report showed that if the system was switched on in late 2004, it would be "no more than a scarecrow, not a real defense."
Some critics say the timetable is devised to field a missile defense system before the 2004 election so President Bush can point to it as a fulfilled campaign pledge.
But Pentagon officials say that the timing is prompted by security concerns and that the Sept. 30, 2004, target date came about simply because it is the end of the fiscal year.
The system, initially with six rocket interceptors in Alaska and four in California, will fire "kill vehicles" that would destroy warheads by force of impact.
In its report, the accounting office said the Pentagon expected to spend $21.8 billion on the system between 1997 and 2009.
Of the 10 antimissile technologies, the report said that contractors and military officials had demonstrated the readiness of 2: infrared sensors on the kill vehicle and the fire-control software of ground-based computers. It said five other technologies - two for booster rockets, two for kill vehicles and one for signaling between ground controllers and kill vehicles in space - would be tested next year.
The report said "the least mature" technologies were three radar systems meant to track incoming warheads. It said the Pentagon planned to certify two in the 2005 fiscal year - after the missile defense system's initial deployment - and to skip testing a final one, known as Cobra Dane, on Shemya Island at the tip of the Aleutians. The Pentagon is struggling to adapt this early warning radar to an antimissile role.
The report called for realistic testing of the Cobra Dane radar before deploying the antimissile system. In a response to the report, the Pentagon said it would try to do that.
The report was requested by Senator Daniel K. Akaka, Democrat of Hawaii, the ranking minority member on the subcommittee on financial management of the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee.
"If the radar does not work, the system will not be able to intercept incoming missiles," Mr. Akaka said in a statement. "We should not be funding an expensive rush to failure in order to meet an artificial deadline set by the president."
Critics say the $22 billion will be wasted in any case because any nation that can build a long-range missile can develop ways to foil antimissile arms, an assertion Pentagon experts reject as giving too little credit to missile defense technology.
-------- pacific
New Zealand to build nuclear test monitoring station in Fiji
WELLINGTON (AFP)
Sep 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030924054004.v9b7hpni.html
New Zealand said Wednesday it would build a nuclear test monitoring station in Fiji as part of a global network of facilities.
Health Minister Annette King signed a contract on behalf of the government with the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) to instal a monitoring station in Nadi, on the western side of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu.
New Zealand's National Radiation Laboratory will build the one million NZ dollar (600,000 US) station, part of a worldwide network of 321 monitoring posts designed to help enforce the nuclear test-ban treaty.
The treaty, signed by more than 160 countries, including New Zealand, is intended to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and lead to disarmament.
-------- russia
Secret shipment
September 24, 2003
(AP) Balkans Brief
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/world_&xml/&aspKath/world.asp?fdate=24/09/2003
A shipment of weapons-grade uranium was clandestinely transported from Romania to Russia, in a US-funded program meant to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism, Romanian authorities said yesterday. The 14 kilograms (30 pounds) of highly enriched uranium shipped over the weekend will be degraded to a form useless for weapons use, said Lucian Biro, the chairman of the National Commission Controlling Nuclear Activities. The uranium left Romania late Sunday on a flight to Novosibirsk in eastern Russia, as part of a $400,000 operation funded by the US Energy Department, said the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA, US, Russian and Romanian officials supervised the transport.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
IAEA Chief ElBaradei Slams U.S. 'Mini - Nuke' Plans
September 24, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-usa-elbaradei.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog sharply criticized Washington's planned research into a new type of small nuclear bomb, saying Wednesday it would send the wrong signal to states considering atomic weapons.
``I had strong reservations, to say the least, when I read that there are plans to research small nukes,'' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told U.S. National Public Radio.
``It really sends absolutely the wrong message, that we are not moving toward disarmament, but that we are reversing course,'' he said.
The administration of President Bush has said it is interested in studying the so-called mini nukes, but not in deploying them.
The mini nukes would be bombs with a yield of less of than five kilotons -- less than half the size of the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.
ElBaradei said that such research would encourage states with hidden ambitions of developing atomic weapons to go for it.
``It sends a message to all the 'wannabes' that if you really want to have security, prestige, status -- go for nuclear weapons, and that's clearly not the way we want to go,'' he said.
After strong lobbying by the United States for action, the governing board of the IAEA on September 12 set an October 31 deadline for Iran to prove it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons as Washington alleges.
Under the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia were allowed to keep nuclear weapons, though they agreed to negotiate in good faith toward full nuclear disarmament.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Congressional Auditors Find U.S. Nuclear Plant Security Flawed
WASHINGTON, DC,
September 24, 2003
(ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2003/2003-09-24-04.asp
Security at the 104 U.S. nuclear power plants needs immediate upgrading, according to a report released today by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The report recommends that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's oversight at commercial nuclear power plants be improved by "promptly restoring annual security inspections" and strengthening force-on-force exercises designed to prepare security personnel to deal with an attack.
The report on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) oversight of power plant security was prepared at the request of Congressman John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and committee member Congressman Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who also serves on the House Homeland Security Committee.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) was asked to review the effectiveness of the NRC's security inspection program and legal challenges affecting power plant security.
The GAO determined that although the NRC has "taken numerous actions to respond to the heightened risk of terrorist attack," three aspects of its security inspection program were flawed.
Baltimore Gas and Electric Company's Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant (Photo courtesy NRC) First, NRC inspectors often used a process that minimized the significance of security problems found in annual inspections by classifying them as "non-cited violations" if the problem had not been identified frequently in the past or if the problem had no direct, immediate, adverse consequences at the time it was identified, the GAO reports.
Non-cited violations do not require a written response from the power plant licensee and do not require NRC inspectors to verify that the problem has been corrected.
For example, the GAO found that guards at one plant failed to physically search several individuals for metal objects after a walk-through detector and a hand-held scanner detected metal objects in their clothing. The unchecked individuals were then allowed unescorted access throughout the plant's protected area.
"By making extensive use of non-cited violations for serious problems, NRC may overstate the level of security at a power plant and reduce the likelihood that needed improvements are made," the GAO warned.
Second, the NRC has no routine, centralized process for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating security inspections to identify problems that may be common to plants or to provide lessons learned in resolving security problems, the GAO pointed out.
Third, although NRC's force-on-force exercises can demonstrate how well a nuclear plant might defend against a real life threat, several weaknesses in how NRC conducted these exercises limited their usefulness.
The GAO reported weaknesses including using more personnel to defend the plant during these exercises than during a normal day, attacking forces that are not trained in terrorist tactics, and using unrealistic weapons - rubber guns - that do not simulate actual gunfire.
Only limited use of some available improvements that would make force-on-force exercises more realistic and provide a more useful learning experience have been incorporated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the report found.
Releasing the GAO report today, Congressman Dingell said, "It is unfortunate that one terrorist attack on American soil wasn't enough to prompt the NRC to pay greater attention to the security risks at some of our country's most vulnerable sites. The GAO report is another wake up call to the NRC that they need to change their attitude about nuclear security by making much needed improvements immediately."
Congressman John Dingell of Michigan (Photo courtesy Office of Representative Dingell) In April, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a new design basis threat that the commercial nuclear power plants must be prepared to defend against.
"However," the report warned, "NRC's past methods for ensuring that plants are taking all of the appropriate defensive measures - the annual security inspections and the force-on-force exercises - had significant weaknesses. As a result, NRC's oversight of these plants may not have provided the information necessary for NRC to ensure that the power plants were adequately defended."
"It is stunning that the NRC still isn't assuring the safety of the millions of Americans who live near the 104 licensed nuclear reactors two years after the attacks of September 11," said Markey today. "GAO has documented a disturbing pattern of lax NRC oversight and inattention to security at these sensitive facilities that are at the very top of Al Qaeda's list for future attacks."
The NRC is in the process of revising both its security inspection program and its force-on-force exercise program. The NRC expects its security inspection program to be restored by 2004 and will decide the future of its force-on-force program after completing its pilot program - at a date yet to be determined.
Jim Wells, director of the GAO's Natural Resources and Environment division, explained in the report that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had seen a draft version for review and comment.
"NRC stated that our report did not provide a balanced or useful perspective of its role in ensuring security at commercial nuclear power plants. NRC believed that our report was 'of a historical nature,' focusing on NRC's oversight of power plants before September 11, 2001, and that our report failed to reflect the changes NRC has made to its program since September 11.
The commission told the GAO that its characterization of "non-cited violations as minimizing the significance of security problems is a serious misrepresentation," Wells wrote.
The commission called the issues raised in the GAO report "anecdotal" and said they were "relatively minor issues" and that it treated them appropriately.
"We agree," Wells wrote, "that NRC has taken numerous and appropriate actions since September 11, 2001, and that additional security procedures have been, and are being, put in place to increase power plant operators' attention to enhancing security."
But, Wells warns, "NRC's oversight actions since September 11 have been interim in nature; it has conducted ad hoc inspections and some force-on-force exercises as part of a pilot program."
Oconee nuclear power plant in Oconee County, South Carolina is operated by Duke Energy. (Photo courtesy NRC) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has suspended the two primary elements of its oversight program - the security inspection program and the force-on-force exercises - and has not yet resumed them, the GAO points out.
Wells defends the GAO's inclusion of pre-September 11 security practices by explaining, "NRC said that it plans to reinstitute the security inspection and the force-on-force exercise programs in the future, but it does not now know what the revised programs will consist of. As a result, we remain convinced that it was appropriate to examine NRC's security oversight program before September 11. In the absence of any formal post-September 11 oversight program, this was the only way to systematically assess the strengths and weaknesses of NRC's oversight."
The GAO's recommendations are "directed at strengthening the oversight programs and making NRC's oversight more relevant to the post-September 11 environment," Wells wrote.
The GAO recommends that the NRC commissioners ensure that NRC's revised security inspection program and force-on-force exercise program are restored promptly and require that NRC regional inspectors conduct follow-up visits to verify that corrective actions have been taken when security violations, including non-cited violations, have been identified.
The NRC should routinely collect, analyze, and disseminate information on security problems, solutions, and lessons learned and share this information with all NRC regions and licensees, the report states.
The commissioners should make force-on-force exercises a required activity and strengthen them by conducting the exercises more frequently at each plant.
The exercises should use laser equipment to ensure accurate accounts of shots fired, and require the exercises to make use of the full terrorist capabilities stated in the design basis threat, including the use of an adversary force that has been trained in terrorist tactics.
The NRC commissioners should continue the practice, begun in 2000, of prohibiting licensees from temporarily increasing the number of guards defending the plant and enhancing plant defenses for force-on-force exercises, the GAO recommends.
The GAO report will be submitted to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform not later than 60 days after the date of this report's release, which is today.
It will be submitted to the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations with the agency's first request for appropriations made more than 60 days after today.
The report, "Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Oversight of Security at Commercial Nuclear Power Plants Needs to Be Strengthened," is available on the GAO website at: http://www.gao.gov.
----
Probe Finds Nuke Plant Security Concerns
September 24, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Security.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal inspections and security exercises at commercial nuclear power plants often overstate the level of protection and reduce the likelihood of security improvements, according to congressional investigators.
The report said that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inspection reports were found to not include incidents such as a guard found sleeping or falsification of security logs as security violations.
It also said that attack exercises that are supposed to test a plant's ability to detect and repel a mock terrorist assault often are staged in such ways that they provide false assurances about a facility's security.
The findings by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, mirror claims made by nuclear industry watchdog groups and some industry whistle-blowers. They maintain that security at nuclear power plants, despite some recent attempts at improvement, cannot deal with a sophisticated, well-armed terrorist attack.
Neither NRC officials or industry representatives could be reached immediately. The report was released late Wednesday.
In the past, industry representatives have said they have made major improvements in security since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
NRC officials have defended their inspection program and exercises as providing valuable experience and information that is used to improve reactor-site security. They argue if it made too realistic and no advance notice is provided an exercised could end up with someone being shot.
But Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and John Dingell, D-Mich., who requested the report, said the findings demonstrate that not enough has been done to assure that nuclear power plants are being safeguarded against terrorists.
Congressional investigators have ``documented a disturbing pattern of lax NRC oversight and inattention to security at these sensitive facilities,'' said Markey, a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee and a frequent critic of the NRC.
Dingell, ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the nuclear agency, said the report is ``a makeup call to the NRC that they need to change their attitudes about nuclear security.''
The report was particularly critical of the NRC's annual security inspections, saying that they ``may overstate the level of security'' at power plants by not citing certain shortcomings and by not assuring that failures are fixed.
It cited as one example a case where a security guard was found asleep on duty for more than half an hour. The NRC inspector called it a ``non-cited violation'' because no attack had taken place and because the incident appeared not to be a regular occurrence.
As to the mock exercises, investigators said they did not reflect ``the real life'' ability of guard forces to defend against actual terrorist threats. For example, according to the report, the NRC exercises:
--allow plant operators advance warning. On the night of the mock attack, they often have as much as 80 percent more guards on duty than normal.
--often use ``mock terrorists'' not trained in terrorist techniques including at times off-duty plant managers and guards who may have a vested interest in how the tests turn out.
--allow attackers to use ``unrealistic weapons'' such as rubber guns that do not accurately reflect attack situations.
Industry officials have defended the exercises and have said that some degree of warning has to be given and limits have to be made on how realistic the exercises are, or someone is likely actually shot someone and possibly get killed.
Peter Stockton, an investigator for Project on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group that has raised many of the same security issues as cited by the GAO, said he found it ``mystifying'' that guard forces could be inflated for the mock exercises.
---------
Entergy expresses 'sincere regret'
September 24, 2003
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Rutland Herald Staff
http://rutlandherald.com/News/Story/72054.html
The head of Entergy Nuclear in Vermont has sent a letter of "sincere regret" to the Public Service Board, promising another in-house review to make sure the company complies with the board's repeated orders that all relevant documents in the company's power case are shared.
"I sincerely regret that discovery difficulties have interfered with the ability of the parties to review the proposal and present their viewpoints," Jay K. Thayer, Entergy site vice president, wrote in a letter to Michael Dworkin, chairman of the Vermont board, dated Tuesday.
"I believe that the review described above will result in the full disclosure of all documents relevant to power uprate," he said.
Last week, at the end of three days of technical hearings into Entergy's plans to increase power production, Dworkin and other board members read Entergy's attorneys a regulatory riot act, saying they appeared to be guilty of trickery by trying to impeach a witness with new documents, and claiming them to be otherwise.
"At last Wednesday's hearing, the board expressed grave concerns regarding Entergy VY's compliance with board orders," Thayer noted. "I personally want to assure the board that all of us at Vermont Yankee understand that the board's process must be fair, open and comprehensive. We also understand that it is our obligation to provide information requested by the parties to this case."
Thayer, in his letter, said he had spoken with his legal team on the case, Victoria Brown and Gary Franklin of the Burlington law firm of Eggleston & Cramer.
Thayer's letter was released after the close of business Tuesday afternoon by Entergy's public relations office, but he was unavailable for direct comment.
But Robert Williams, Entergy Nuclear's spokesman, said that the two-page letter was "an expression of sincere regret ... the letter speaks for itself."
Raymond Shadis, on the staff of the New England Coalition, said that Thayer's letter was "so much crocodile tears and nothing more."
"What is this? A death-bed conversion?" Shadis said. "This is typical of corporate and bureaucratic manipulation. To suggest there's something wrong with their system? This is a question of basic honesty. They knew very well the documents were incomplete."
Shadis this summer had assembled a small group of nuclear experts to evaluate Entergy's plans, but they were largely thwarted because of incomplete or missing documents.
Entergy wants to add, in essence, a 110-megawatt reactor to the existing 540-megawatt station already in Vernon, a 20 percent increase.
According to a recent filing with the NRC, the federal agency that will review the proposal, the company plans on changing the nuclear fuel more often, so that younger and hotter fuel generates more heat and steam, which is converted to electricity.
The New England Coalition, which has been fighting Vermont Yankee since it was first planned in the 1960s, contends that the power increase would be a dangerous thing for a small, aging reactor to undertake. The financial benefits are all Entergy's, the coalition says, while the risks are Vermonters'.
So far, the Department of Public Service, which acts as the ratepayers' advocate, has refused to endorse the plan, saying there is no economic incentive for Vermont ratepayers, that, in fact, there is substantial financial risk.
The department's support is usually viewed as key in such a case before the Public Service Board.
Last year, when Entergy was seeking the board's approval of its $180 million purchase of Vermont Yankee, the department's support was pivotal.
Shadis, who was invited by the board last week to suggest sanctions against Entergy Nuclear, said that even Tuesday, when he received another round of documents about the power increase, Entergy didn't follow the Public Service Board's orders.
"Protocols are important. As of today, they are still mistreating the process," he said.
He said the UPS man delivered Entergy Nuclear's filing with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission "dumped in a bag and shipped to me like a dead cat."
Most importantly, he said, there was no cover letter and formal pledge from either the attorneys or Entergy officials that the documents were complete and true.
"If they're going to start to do things right, when are they going to start?" he asked.
Shadis wouldn't say Tuesday evening what sanctions against Entergy Nuclear he would be seeking when he files the New England Coalition's request with the board on Wednesday. Entergy has until Monday to respond.
Thayer closed his letter with a somewhat cryptic promise to the board: "I am prepared to take additional management actions should they prove necessary to ensure Entergy fully meets the board's expectations in these proceedings."
When asked what that meant, Williams repeated: "The letter speaks for itself."
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
-------- us politics
Let the neo-cons bellow, just bring the troops home
Bruce Ramsey editorial columnist
Seattle Times
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001742573_ramsx24.html
George, here's what to do in Iraq: Declare victory and bring the troops home.
A senator from Vermont once suggested such a policy during the Vietnam War. It would have meant a defeat. In this case, it might mean chaos, at least for a while, unless you can get more international help.
You asked for help from the U.N. That was good. Get back to them and say, "We're serious. We're on a fast track to leave."
To America's soldiers, you can say: "You're fighters, not social workers. The fighting's done, excellent work, and you can start going home."
Thousands of American families will thank you.
To the American people, you can say: "We've changed our minds about the occupation of Iraq. We'll need only part of that $87 billion I asked for. The rest you can keep."
Watch your poll numbers go up.
The warrior intellectuals - the neoconservatives - will bellow. Let them. They don't have any electoral votes. The American people never bought their "neo-Wilsonian" fantasies of empire. Asserting American dominance was never your argument for war. You said Americans had to depose Saddam Hussein in order to protect themselves.
That's done.
Our occupation of Iraq is not yet six months old and already Iraqis are making sure that we tire of it. This will not tend to get better. An antiwar feeling has arisen in the United States, and Howard Dean, a nobody from a small state, has ridden it to the head of the pack. Dean says he wouldn't have gone to war in the first place. Few notice that Dean also says we ought to stay in Iraq to do nation-building.
"Well, Howard," you can say, "I'm bringing the troops home. If you're elected, you can send them back."
Would America be giving up if we did that? We would be giving up the right to reconstruct Iraq our way. We would not be giving up anything the average American cares about.
Certainly, the American people would accept a change in policy. They have accepted the official story from the start - the weapons of mass destruction, the "link" between Saddam and bin Laden, the "Woman Warrior" story about Pvt. Jessica Lynch. They are not paying much attention to Iraq. They will accept a pullout.
Consider the alternative: Five years of occupation. Maybe 10. Bombs, demonstrations, dead Americans.
Think of the Democrats. In 2002 you beat them by offering to save America from a foreign threat. If you do that in 2004, you're going to be in trouble. Americans get tired of wars that drag on and on, and tend to toss out the political party that does the dragging. Look up the election of 1952. Also 1968. Ask your dad about the political shelf-life of military victory. It is less than one year.
Think of the economy. Business has been terrible since you became president. The people have been pretty forgiving about that. They know the dot-com bust was not your doing (nor Clinton's, really). You have given the people a tax cut, and Alan Greenspan has given them rock-bottom interest rates. In normal times, these would produce a snapping recovery. But war sits on business confidence like a fat man on a dog.
Your war, a Republican war, of which the politically profitable part is over. We are now in the losing part. The occupation of Iraq could drag on well past November 2004.
But you can forestall that. Lean on the U.N. for troops. Lean on the Egyptians; they owe us a favor or two for the billions we've doled out to them. Speed up the creation of an Iraqi government. You don't need to wait for elections. That's Iraq's business.
Then you can announce that most of the troops will be home by Christmas and you will not be needing all of that $87 billion.
Watch Wall Street jump. The dollar, too.
Nobody expects you to do this. It will shock your friends, but what's more, it will confound your enemies. It will also steer the Republican Party back toward that nationalistic but "humble" foreign policy you described three years ago, which best suits the interests, and the patience, of those who might vote for you in 2004.
Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is bramsey@seattletimes.com
----
There Is Nothing Conservative About the US Policy in Iraq
by Rep. John J. Duncan
September 24, 2003
Antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/duncan3.html
Conservatives have never believed in massive foreign aid. Our occupation of Iraq has become the largest foreign aid program in the history of the world.
We are building or rebuilding thousands of Iraqi schools, giving free health care to Iraqi citizens, and even making back payments to the Iraqi military and Iraqi retirees.
Last week I read that we are sending 60,000 soccer balls there. Our Founding Fathers could not have foreseen this in their wildest dreams.
Conservatives have never favored huge deficit spending. We are now told our deficits will reach an astounding one trillion dollars counting this fiscal year and the next.
Supporters of the war scoffed at predictions that we would spend $200 to $300 billion in Iraq over the next 10 years.
Now, by the most conservative estimates, not counting many things that should be counted, the Iraqi operation will cost us $167 billion in just the first two years.
And because we are in such a deep fiscal hole already, we will have to borrow all these billions we are spending there.
Conservatives have never believed in world government and have been the biggest critics of the United Nations.
Yet some prominent war supporters, while criticizing the U.N. in one breath, would say in the next that we had to go to war to enforce all the U.N. resolutions that Saddam Hussein had violated.
If this is not world government, then what is? And why should we put almost the entire burden of enforcing U.N. resolutions on the U.S. military and American taxpayers? That is not conservative.
Conservatives have been strong supporters of national defense, not international defense.
Senator Robert Taft wrote: "No foreign policy can be justified except a policy devoted...to the protection of the liberty of the American people, with war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty."
Conservatives have never believed that the United States should be the policeman of the world.
President John Quincy Adams, in one of his most famous statements, said: "America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Presidents Washington and Jefferson both warned against permanent or entangling alliances with other countries.
Now, we have been in Korea for 50 years, spending over three billion dollars a year to "protect" that nation, in spite of massive anti-American demonstrations there. We are still in Bosnia even though President Clinton promised we would be out by the end of 1996. In fact we have a military presence of some sort in almost every country.
Most traditional conservatives believe we would not have nearly as many enemies around the world if we followed a non-interventionist foreign policy and did not get involved in so many religious, ethnic, and political disputes in other countries.
The so-called Neo-Cons have great power but really are a small minority of American conservatives, if they are conservative at all.
The syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer wrote recently: "Critics of the war against Iraq have said since the beginning of the conflict that Americans, still strangely complacent about overseas wars being waged by a minority in their name, will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home or one that seeks empire across the globe."
A very small minority of very powerful Neo-Cons have apparently dreamed of war with Iraq for many years. They got their wish. But what they may have thought would be their crowning achievement may instead lead to their downfall.
So many people in the U.S. and around the world feel that they were misled about the need to go to war in Iraq that they almost certainly will be much harder to convince the next time around.
Saddam Hussein was a very evil man, but he had a military budget only about 2/10 of one percent of ours and was never any real threat to us. Everyone knew we would win the war quickly and easily.
But Fortune magazine, in its November 25th issue, long before the war started, published an article entitled "Iraq- We Win, What Then?" The article said a "military victory could then turn into a strategic defeat" and that an American occupation would be "prolonged and expensive" and "could turn U.S. troops into sitting ducks for Islamic terrorists." These predictions have turned out to be deadly accurate.
The great conservative columnist Charley Reese wrote that a U.S. attack on Iraq "is a prescription for the decline and fall of the American empire. Overextension urged on by a bunch of intellectuals who wouldn't know one end of a gun from another - has doomed many an empire. Just let the United States try to occupy the Middle East, which will be the practical result of a war against Iraq, and Americans will be bled dry by the costs both in blood and treasure."
Where are we now? The September 1 Time magazine said "an Iraq in which civil servants are murdered while aid workers live under armed guard is not a success."
William Pfaff, in a column in the International Herald Tribune in late August, wrote that "there is no victory in sight, not even a definition of victory" and that "killing fields" have now opened "that no one knows how to shut down, with American forces themselves increasingly the victims."
Shortly thereafter, Adil Allawi wrote a letter to the Editor of the Financial Times. It is interesting because he was an opponent of Hussein's who has been forced to live outside of Iraq for 30 years.
Mr. Allawi wrote: "Replacing a U.S. occupation with a U.N. occupation will only create a different target for the bombers....The root of the violence is that Iraq is occupied by a foreign power. There is no real vision of how that occupation might be transformed into a representative government. Iraqis should be providing their own security but I cannot see how they can risk their and their families' lives for a fuzzy promise."
No nation has even come close to doing as much for other countries as has the United States. Yet despite hundreds of billions in oversees spending, the National Journal last December said "signs of resistance to U.S foreign policy leadership are growing, as is widespread resentment about the long shadow the American Goliath casts across the globe."
In that same issue, columnist William Schneider wrote: "Throughout the Middle East, anti-Americanism has grown along with U.S. influence....The lesson: Great power breeds great resentment."
Almost all conservatives applauded and were enthusiastic when President Bush, as a candidate, said that he opposed nation-building and that we needed a more humble foreign policy. Over 80% of House Republicans voted against our interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
I strongly supported President Bush in the 2000 election, and I will support him again in 2004.
My party unity scores were the exact same in both 2001 and 2002- 91%. My ratings from the American Conservative Union were the exact same for both 2001 and 2002- 92%. It is unusual, and it was unintentional, to have the exact same scores two years in a row, but these ratings clearly show that no one can fairly question either my loyalty to the Republican Party or my conservatism.
I represent a district that has voted Republican for Congress and President since the founding of the Republican Party. Yet now there are many life-long Republicans who are wondering why in the world we are borrowing billions to rebuild Iraq when there are so many people unemployed and so many needs here at home.
I have expressed my views in regard to Iraq without once ever criticizing President Bush. In fact, I continue to believe that this war came about because he is surrounded by big government Neo-Cons in key foreign policy positions rather than traditional conservatives.
Many, possibly even most, Republicans in the House have expressed misgivings and concerns about our policy in Iraq but have reluctantly gone along with the White House.
Now it is politically correct for most on both sides of the aisle to repeat noble clichés like "we have to get the job done" and "we must stay the course" and the American people "must be willing to make the sacrifice."
Well, we should all be asking why. It is clear that the Iraqi people do not want us running Iraq. They only want our money.
Neo-con interventionist foreign policies are only breeding resentment, creating even more enemies, and putting our children and grandchildren into a financial black hole so deep they may never get out.
In 1967, Russell Kirk and James McClellan, in a book called The Political Principles of Robert A. Taft, wrote that Taft, while no pacifist, believed that "every other possibility must be exhausted before resort to military action" because "war would make the American president a virtual dictator, diminish the constitutional powers of Congress, contract civil liberties, injure the habitual self-reliance and self-government of the American people, distort the economy, sink the federal government in debt, break in upon private and public morality. The constitutions of government in America were not made for prolonged emergencies; and it might require generations for the nation to recover from a war of a few years' duration."
No matter who is President, almost all the leaders of the Defense Department, the State Department, the National Security Council, and our intelligence agencies are going to advocate more and more involvement in foreign affairs, even those which should be none of our business or even where there is no threat to our vital interests.
This is because all their power and glory and, most importantly, their funding are determined in large part by our involvement in the affairs of other nations. These people are not seen as men and women of action and as world statesmen unless they urge that we do more and more in other countries.
Unfortunately, we do not have many Calvin Coolidge's leading these departments and agencies today.
I wish more of our leaders would heed the advice of President Kennedy who said in 1962: "we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient - that we are only six percent (now four percent) of the world's population - that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind - that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity - and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."
There is nothing conservative about the U.S policy in Iraq.
----
White House Presses Its $87 Billion Request for Iraq
September 24, 2003
New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/politics/24CND-COSTS.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - The Bush administration told senators today that the $87 billion it seeks for the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan would be invested, in a larger sense, in the security of the United States and the cause of freedom itself.
But several Democrats were disdainful of that argument, and accused the White House of distorting history, including some recent history. And even those lawmakers who said they would vote to provide the $87 billion for military spending and reconstruction expressed misgivings.
"It's a great deal of money, let there be no doubt," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee. "But it's a modest fraction of our nation's wealth. To defend freedom in the 21st century, we need to rout out terrorists. And we need to help the now-free people in Iraq and Afghanistan rebuild from the rubble of tyranny."
L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator in Iraq, delivered the same message to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Make no mistake," Mr. Bremer told the panel. "These requested funds represent an investment in America's national security. You may think I exaggerate, but I ask you to look at what happened in Afghanistan, another country which after it was debilitated by decades of war and mismanagement became easy prey to the Taliban and Al Qaeda."
The two administration officials, testifying at the same time, were received courteously by lawmakers from both parties. Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who heads the Appropriations Committee, said early on: "We cannot afford to fail the people of Iraq. We must complete our mission."
But Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee who has emerged as one of the fiercest Democratic critics of the administration's policy on Iraq, assailed the administration yet again.
"The American people deserve to know more about what the administration has planned," Mr. Byrd said. "But rather than explanations of the administration's long-term plan for Iraq, the American people only get comparisons to the Marshall Plan."
A moment later, the West Virginian said the campaign in Iraq had done great damage to America's stature. "The war in Iraq was not a defensive war," he said. "It was a pre-emptive attack. We have alienated most of the international community in fighting this pre-emptive war."
As for comparisons to the Marshall Plan, Mr. Byrd said, "The Marshall Plan was not presented to Congress for its rubber-stamp approval."
Mr. Byrd is first in seniority in the Senate. He is a jealous guardian of the prerogatives of Congress, likes to cite passages from the Constitution, and is a master of Senate procedures. So if he wanted to be an obstacle to the administration on its request for the $87 billion in supplemental financing, he could be.
But a number of senators in both parties have said the administration will get the $87 billion it seeks, in part because the bulk of it would go toward military operations. The conduct and sacrifices of the American troops have been unanimously praised, and many lawmakers have said they will give them whatever they need to complete their mission and come home.
"Iraq was a tremendous military victory, and you folks at the table ought to be congratulated," said Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina. "Thus far, it's a political failure."
But Mr. Rumsfeld, who was accompanied by Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, head of the military's Central Command, said it was "premature" to think of political failure.
Mr. Hollings went on to question the administration's assumption that the previous rulers of Iraq were a threat to the United States. "If there were any real security threat by Saddam Hussein, Israel would knock it out in the next two hours."
Outside of the hearings, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said that while she did not question Mr. Bush's motivations, "I've said that I didn't think that the threat was imminent; that the intelligence did not support the threat. I've said that for nearly a year, and I continue to say that, and I think the facts have borne that out. Whatever they may eventually find in Iraq, if anything, they cannot find the imminence of a threat. And that was the provocation for war."
Other Democrats in the hearings also expressed annoyance over the administration's portrayal of the Iraq campaign as part of a worldwide campaign against terrorism.
"We were led to believe and understand that there was imminent danger of weapons of mass destruction being unleashed," said Senator Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin. "We were led to understand that there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq."
Even Republicans have given signals that they will closely follow the spending on Iraq and the progress there. Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, said as much.
"Our planning must reflect the promise to establish an Iraqi government that is representative, that is effective and underpinned by protected freedoms and a market economy," Mr. Lugar said. "Many Iraqis have had a difficult time understanding how the most powerful nation in the world could defeat their armed forces in three weeks and still have trouble getting the lights turned on."
Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said: "We cannot afford to lose this. If we fail, our credibility and our national security will be damaged badly."
But Mr. Biden said he was unpersuaded by the administration's repeated equating of the Iraqi campaign and the broader campaign against terrorism, although he conceded that terrorism might be "relevant."
Mr. Biden said President Bush's address to the United Nations on Tuesday "sets us in the right direction." But the senator clearly was unenthusiastic about the overall tone of the speech. In any event, he said, "we so poisoned the well in the lead-up to this war" that other countries will be reluctant to contribute to the work in Iraq.
"That's a terrible indictment, in my view, of our foreign policy and a harsh example of the price of unilateralism."
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Clark Lays Out $100 Billion Plan for Jobs and Security
September 24, 2003
New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/politics/campaigns/24CND-CLAR.html
Gen. Wesley K. Clark, in his first policy address, harshly criticized President Bush's handling of the economy today and outlined his own plan to devote $100 billion to create jobs and strengthen homeland security, education and health care.
The retired four-star general, who entered the presidential race a week ago with no political experience or thoroughly stated positions on key domestic issues, said his plan was "a clear alternative to the failed polices of Mr. Bush."
General Clark, a former NATO commander and Army officer, blamed the Bush administration for overseeing "massive tax cuts for the rich, staggering deficits for the country and the worst job losses since the Great Depression," and declared, "It's heartless, it's reckless and it's wrong." He spoke in Manhattan on the opposite bank of the East River from the Domino Sugar plant where company officials plan to close the refinery by next February and lay off 180 workers.
The speech came a day before General Clark and the nine other candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination face off in a two-hour debate in New York focusing on the economy, which has become a focal issue of the campaign.
Also today in New York, Gov. Howard Dean spoke to the American Society of Magazine Editors, and Sen. Bob Graham was planning to attend a reception with young professionals and a campaign fund-raiser.
Several other Democratic candidates were in Washington, including Senator John Kerry, who received the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which reported 214,000 dues-paying members last year. Also in Washington today, Representative Dennis Kucinich was on Capitol Hill to unveil legislation to repeal the USA Patriot Act; the Rev. Al Sharpton was attending the Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference; and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman was scheduled to attend the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's 26th Annual Gala.
Representative Richard A. Gephardt was in Chicago this morning where he received the endorsement of the Laborers International Union of North America and then traveled to Washington for private fund-raising events. The endorsement is the 13th union endorsement that Mr. Gephardt has received, far more than any other Democratic candidate. The union has 840,000 members and represents construction workers
Tomorrow's debate, the second of six scheduled meetings, will be General Clark's first big test on the national stage following a week of saturation news coverage but, until today, scant discussion of policy.
He said today he would base his jobs plan on the reduction of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans - those making more than $200,000 a year - and direct the savings into three funds: homeland security, relief for state governments and business tax incentives.
About $40 billion would be allocated for the improvement of homeland security, including more training and hiring of firefighters, police officers and Coast Guard and customs personnel.
The second fund calls for $40 billion to help state and local governments suffering the "brutal effect" of federal tax cuts, the general said. Some $20 billion would be earmarked for job-training programs, $10 billion would help states pay for health care, and $10 billion would help states pay for law enforcement and social services jobs.
The final fund - $20 billion - would pay for tax incentives for businesses that hire new employees. The plan would offer a tax credit of up to $5,000 for each additional full-time employee hired between 2004 and 2005.
General Clark insisted that the plan would not increase the deficit because it would simply be shifting wealth from the richest Americans to "funds that will help middle-income and working class families."
"The workers have no jobs, and this White House has no plan," the candidate said. "They say tax cuts for the rich will create jobs. They say drilling in the Arctic will create jobs. They say a new energy plan will create jobs. They say easing environmental regulations will create jobs. They are flailing. They are desperate." In his speech today, General Clark continued to draw on his military background to bolster his campaign, recounting his 34-year military career, including a stint in Vietnam.
Yet he insisted that dissent and argument was an essential part of a democracy, using language that would have thrilled activists who protested the war in which he fought.
"Nothing is more American, nothing is more patriotic than speaking out, questioning authority and holding your leaders accountable," he declared.
"I'm promoting a new American patriotism because it is vital to the life and health of this country that we criticize our leaders fairly but freely," he said. "Some ask, `How can you criticize the president at a time of war?' I answer, `How can you not?' "
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Analysis A Vague Pitch Leaves Mostly Puzzlement
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54800-2003Sep23.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 -- In his speech today to the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush tried to walk a fine line between defending a war deeply unpopular in much of the world and looking for help from reluctant countries to rebuild Iraq. The result left diplomats and lawmakers puzzled about his ultimate intentions.
Bush, in fact, sidestepped direct answers to many of the questions that have arisen since the administration said it would seek a Security Council resolution that would expand the United Nations' role in Iraq and call on countries to contribute more troops and money. How quickly would the United States grant sovereignty to the Iraqis? Would the administration grant any decision-making role to the United Nations in exchange for its imprimatur? Or does the administration simply want assistance without giving up much in return?
One reason