Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
Jack C. Grigg, a Shaper of Nuclear Navy's Systems, Is Dead at 83
Nuclear power station shut down in Russia after breakdown
Radioactive Materials Missing in U.S.
Using Baby Teeth as a Geiger Counter
BAE System's Dirty Dealings
IRAQ: Worse Could Follow, Says New Study
Iraqi Death Toll, Health Perils Assessed by Medical Group
DU shipping and transport
U.N. Atomic Agency Draws Fire Over Iran
UN agency raps Iran but says no evidence of nuclear bomb
Iran produced both uranium and plutonium - IAEA
Iran plays down its breaches of nuclear agreements as minor
Iran guilty but cooperating: UN
EU says Iran needs to follow words with action on nukes
What happens next with IAEA report on Iran
Iran Dismisses Criticism of Nuclear Program by U.N. Agency
Russia Ready to Help Iran With Nuclear Plant
U.N. Agency Reports Iran Made Small Amount of Plutonium
Iran Had Secret Nuclear Program,
CIA fears North Korea nuke
North Korea Nuclear Talks May Restart Dec 10, Report Says
Russian Jury to Hear Treason Case Against Arms Control Researcher
Feds Concerned About Dirty Bombs
French terror suspect had photos of nuclear reactor
Lawrence Livermore Lab Retains Its Name
Yucca Mountain Site Must Make Use Of Geological Safety Net
Rumsfeld Takes More Friendly Fire
Disparity in Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Scrutinized
MILITARY
Bomb Damages U.N. Office in Afghanistan
6 Afghans Die in U.S. Raid, Reports Say
U.S., Afghan Forces Stage Offensive in Eastern Area
Asia's 14-billion-dollar naval defence market a magnet for global firms
Military warns of withdrawal
NATO peacekeepers destroy weapons in Bosnia
Iraqis want private-sector Japanese, not SDF
War killed 55,000 Iraqi civilians
Iraqi Tribes, Asked to Help G.I.'s, Say They Can't
GI Kills Head of Council in Baghdad Slum
New Office to Coordinate Iraq Contracts
Saudi Forces Detain Riyadh Bombing Suspects
Death of student on military training causes storm in Russia
Defense bill elevates debate on tech security issues
Desert Storm-era vet: Disservice done to syndrome victims
Troops Awaiting Deployment Hear of Mounting Casualties
Enola Gay Exhibit Won't Be Changed
Critics say blunt-spoken weapons expert has exaggerated
Cheney Theme of Qaeda Ties to Iraq Bombings Are Questioned by Some
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
High court to hear Guantanamo detainees' case
Justices to Hear Case of Detainees at Guantánamo
Justices to Rule on Detainees' Rights
Homeland Security chief seeks school children's help
U.S. Examining Anti - Missile Systems for Airliners
Post-9/11 Visa Rules Keep Thousands From Coming to U.S.
FBI Challenges in Probe of Iraq Bombings
ENERGY AND OTHER
Clean Energy Brings Windfall to Indian Village
Federal Lab Hosts Experimental Thin-Film Solar Cells
ACTIVISTS
Protests as nuclear waste shipment heads to German dump
German and French protesters slow shipment of nuclear waste
It doesn't always pay to plead
Thousands to Speak Out Against Terror Training at SOA
-------- NUCLEAR
Jack C. Grigg, a Shaper of Nuclear Navy's Systems, Is Dead at 83
November 11, 2003
New York Times
By WOLFGANG SAXON
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/national/11GRIG.html
Jack Clifton Grigg, an electrical engineer who helped guide the Navy into the age of nuclear propulsion and the country into the realm of commercial nuclear power, died on Nov. 1 at his home in Silver Spring, Md. He was 83.
The cause was Parkinson's disease, his family said.
Mr. Grigg worked directly for Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, who was the public face of the nuclear Navy and was often called its father. But it was lesser-known experts like Mr. Grigg who safely executed the concept.
Mr. Grigg was in charge of drafting and installing instrumentation and control systems to make nuclear propulsion operational. His engineering team designed the profusion of levers and switches, panels and gauges, piping and wiring for the generators that powered the Nautilus and Seawolf submarines, the behemoths of the Nimitz carrier class, as well as electric plants on shore.
He spent 36 years with the Navy and its Bureau of Ships, now the Naval Sea Systems Command, and retired in 1978 as chief of nuclear instrumentation and control.
He accompanied Rickover to shipyards for a final inspection of electrical gear before commissioning the vessels. And he went back with him to the home ports of the rapidly growing nuclear fleet for periodic examinations of their power plants to forestall leaks or control failures at sea.
Mr. Grigg was responsible for the electrical equipment of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station near Midland, Pa. The first commercial atomic reactor, it went into operation on May 23, 1958, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower tripped the circuit from 300 miles away in the Oval Office. The plant was operated by the Duquesne Light Company for the Department of Energy until October 1982, after which it was decommissioned and decontaminated.
Jack Grigg was born and raised on a farm outside Tulia, Tex., and received a degree in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University in 1941. Initially employed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, he joined the Navy's Bureau of Ships in 1942, working with Rickover in makeshift quarters on the grounds of the Washington Monument.
He worked in various positions designing control systems for naval vessels. In 1952 he transferred to the bureau's newly formed Nuclear Propulsion Division, in charge of design, procurement, installation and testing of all control systems for the Nautilus and the Seawolf.
Supervising large staffs of engineers and scientists, Mr. Grigg also oversaw the assembly of such systems for land-based prototype reactor plants.
After retiring from government service, he worked as a consultant for utilities, architectural and engineering firms and the Navy.
Mr. Grigg is survived by his wife of 57 years, Magdalene Mayfield Grigg; two daughters, Jeanine Lee of Potomac, Md., and Eileen Grigg of Manhattan; and one grandson.
-------- accidents and safety
Nuclear power station shut down in Russia after breakdown
MOSCOW (AFP)
Nov 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031111101408.ldi4o68a.html
A nuclear power station in the southern Russian town of Volgodonsk was shut down last week after an unspecified fault, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday.
The shutdown occurred on Friday, the report said, but was not reported until Tuesday.
The station which has only one functioning nuclear reactor is located in the town of Volgodonsk in the southern Rostov region.
Nuclear energy officials were not immediately able to determine what caused the problem, with ITAR-TASS reporting that an investigation was being conducted at the scene.
There was no immediate information about any possible radiation leaks during the accident, but the report said the power supplies were not affected in the region.
----
Radioactive Materials Missing in U.S.
JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press
Tue, Nov. 11, 2003
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/7230134.htm
WASHINGTON - Despite tightened security, terrorists still have a "very significant" chance of obtaining enough radioactive ingredients to create a dirty bomb, federal investigators conclude.
This finding arises from studies that document more than 1,300 disappearances of radioactive materials in the United States over the past five years. Most have been recovered, but some losses remain unsolved.
"The world of radiological sources developed prior to recent concerns about terrorism, and many of the sources are either unsecured or provided, at best, with an industrial level of security," a report written by the Energy Department's Los Alamos lab concluded.
That study and three others by the General Accounting Office, reviewed by The Associated Press, cited significant holes in the nation's security net that could take years to close, even after improvements by regulators since Sept. 11, 2001.
The Los Alamos report concludes that the threat of a so-called dirty bomb that could disperse radioactive debris across a wide area "appears to be very significant, and there is no shortage of radioactive materials that could be used."
Security improvements under way "are unlikely to significantly alter the global risk picture for a few years," it added.
The FBI repeatedly has warned law enforcement over the past year that al-Qaida was interested in obtaining radiological materials and creating a dispersal bomb, most recently after authorities received an uncorroborated report a few weeks ago that al-Qaida might be seeking material from a Canadian source.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Beth Hayden said the agency recognizes the potential dangers of such materials and al-Qaida's interest in them. "There are millions of sources," she said. But she added most of the 1,300 lost radiological materials were subsequently recovered, and the public should keep the threat in perspective.
"The ones that have been lost and not recovered, I'm told, if you put them all together, it would not add up to one highly radioactive source," Hayden said. "These are low-level sources."
The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee says the studies show security efforts fall short of the need.
"Even though for years we have known of the threat that terrorists would use 'dirty bombs' to attack the United States, I am alarmed at the government's inadequate response to this very real threat. The economic and health costs of such an event would be staggering. It appears we don't even know how much material exists that could be used for such weapons or even where it is being kept," Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, said.
The Los Alamos analysis specifically cited concerns about the transportation of large shipments of radioactive cobalt from industrial sites, as well as lax security at hospitals that use radiological devices to treat and diagnose patients.
The GAO, Congress' investigative arm, detailed how terrorists could abuse the legal method for obtaining radiological sources because the NRC takes as long as a year to inspect facilities after it mails them a license for such materials. "It is possible that sealed sources can be obtained for malicious intent," the GAO told the Senate recently.
NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. said the GAO concerns were overstated, focusing on materials with extremely low radioactivity. He said his agency has been taking steps for months to more securely ship and store high-risk sources.
"We honestly think we are doing a very aggressive and excellent job in this area, but we have obviously more to do," McGaffigan said in an interview. "Our view is we don't want to lose any of them, and we are going to have cradle-to-grave controls as soon as we possibly can for high-risk sources."
The government is undertaking its first-ever inventory of who possesses radioactive materials and how much they possess, he said.
The GAO questioned whether the NRC has moved fast enough to secure sealed sources - devices that contain small amounts of radiological materials used in construction and hospitals.
"The number of sealed sources in the United States is unknown because NRC and states track numbers of licensees instead of sealed sources," the GAO told the Senate in August.
Two universities told the GAO about cases in which doors to rooms with nuclear materials had been found unlocked or open.
The congressional investigators found that many of the 114 universities that possess radioactive plutonium-239 have tried unsuccessfully to return it to the government. The Energy Department doesn't have enough secure storage space, the investigators said.
The congressional investigation for the first time tallied the number of times sealed radiological materials have been lost, misplaced or stolen. They found more than 1,300 instances inside the United States since 1998. While most have been recovered, the report cited a handful of harrowing, unsolved losses.
In March 1999, an industrial radiography camera containing iridium-192 was stolen from a Florida home. The camera has not been recovered despite an FBI investigation. The NRC believes the material should have degraded by now and no longer be useful for a bomb.
A North Carolina hospital discovered in March 1998 that 19 sealed sources of radiological material, including the highly dispersible cesium-137, were missing from a locked safe. They have not been found.
Security improvements are being made. For instance, the NRC requires tighter security by companies that use soil analysis gauges that contain radiological materials. There are some 20,000 of them used nationwide by more than 5,100 licensees. The devices are lost or stolen at a rate of one a week, officials said.
The GAO and Los Alamos security reviews made several recommendations. They include keeping licensed sources from getting radiological materials until after they are inspected, improving structural security at high-risk locations and toughening federal, state and international regulatory controls.
"These efforts are unlikely to significantly alter the global risk picture for a few years, although the risks regarding certain sources and circumstances could change more quickly," the Los Alamos study conceded.
ON THE NET
Copies of the studies reviewed by AP are available at http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/external/wid.ap.org/index.html
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
--------
Using Baby Teeth as a Geiger Counter
November 11, 2003
By ANDY NEWMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/nyregion/11TEET.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Joseph J. Mangano does not even notice the smell anymore. It hits you the moment you walk into his tiny, tidy apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, something musty and a little acrid, though not entirely unpleasant.
It is the smell of 3,000 human baby teeth and the crumbling 50-year-old envelopes that hold them, each one scribbled with a few bits of information: cuspid or molar, intact or rootless, milk-fed or breast. The teeth - some split or brown-streaked, some improbably pearly - sit in boxes inside boxes atop his bookshelf, waiting for the next phase of research to see if they contain life-threatening amounts of nuclear fallout.
Mr. Mangano runs the Radiation and Public Health Project Inc., a shoestring organization with offices mostly on his kitchen table, that has spent the last 18 years questioning the safety of nuclear power.
In 2001, the group acquired custody of thousands of baby teeth collected from America's young mostly during the 1950's and 60's for a study of the effects of atom bomb tests.
The original survey, known as the Tooth Fairy study, found many teeth with elevated levels of strontium 90, a radioactive and carcinogenic yellowish metal isotope that bonds to tooth and bone. Mr. Mangano's group is looking to track down donors and find out if levels of strontium 90 correlate with cancer in later life.
But that is only half of the Radiation and Public Health Project's mission - the less provocative half. They are also measuring strontium 90 in the teeth of modern-day children, sick and healthy, to determine the relative levels in children born or reared near nuclear power plants.
Mr. Mangano's group thinks the dual effort might show something that few people want to hear: that the nation's 100-plus nuclear power reactors, when operated under normal conditions, are giving people cancer. They say they have already found signs: disproportionate drops in infant mortality after reactors close; parallel trends in childhood cancer rates and strontium 90 levels.
"We're not trying to scare anyone," Mr. Mangano said last Friday. "We're trying to inform people."
The group's work is, to say the very least, controversial. Though members of the group have published a handful of articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Archives of Environmental Health, their credibility with the scientific establishment hovers near zero. Detractors say they obsess over amounts of radiation that are insignificant compared with the dose humans receive each day from cosmic rays, soil and other natural sources.
And their few government contracts have left a short trail of dissatisfied local officials sharply critical of their methods, their scientific objectivity and their results.
"What they do is what's popularly referred to as junk science," said Dr. Joshua Lipsman, the health commissioner in Westchester County, home of the embattled Indian Point nuclear power plant and, according to the Radiation and Public Health Project, children with the highest strontium 90 readings in the region. "We found a number of scientific errors both in measurement and process in their proposals."
Mr. Mangano, 47, who has a master's degree in public health, defends the group's work. He is not surprised to meet resistance from the military-industrial-energy-pharmaceutical-governmental complex.
"It's something that government does not do, measure radiation levels in the bodies of people living near reactors," he said. A 1991 National Cancer Institute study of disease patterns found no general increased risk of death from cancer for people living near 62 reactors. But Mr. Mangano said the study, while comprehensive, focused on disease patterns, which can have causes other than radiation, and that in any case the most recent data used in it is now 20 years old and needs to be updated.
Zdenek Hrubec, a biostatistician who worked on the 1991 study, said that while the study had its limits, it was difficult to imagine a case where reactors caused an increase in cancer that was hidden in the statistics. "You'd have to postulate that there was a deficit of smokers or industrial pollutants in the same places where there were nuclear reactors," he said.
The Radiation and Public Health Project keeps trying, and with the help of its friends, including left-leaning celebrities like Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon, it is surviving. Tomorrow at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, the group will announce the receipt of a $25,000 state grant to collect and analyze 50 teeth from children with cancer and compare them with the teeth of healthy children.
Gov. James E. McGreevey is scheduled to speak. Almost more encouraging, Mr. Mangano said, is that a state finance official told him on Friday that the first check was in the mail. "By Tuesday I'll know if he's telling the truth," Mr. Mangano said.
The original Tooth Fairy study goes back to the height of the Red Menace, when scientists began to complain that the government was regularly exploding atomic bombs over domestic soil - more than 100 nuclear tests were eventually done - without knowing their effects on people.
In 1959, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, including Barry Commoner, one of the founders of environmentalism, started a campaign to collect baby teeth. Each donor received a button saying "I gave my tooth to science."
Strontium 90 was chosen as a proxy for the dozens of slow-decaying radioactive compounds in nuclear fallout because it was relatively easy to test for.
The researchers determined that from 1945 to 1965, strontium 90 levels in baby teeth had risen 50-fold, a finding used in the successful push for a nuclear test ban. But no one followed up on the health of the donors, and the program was discontinued in 1970.
The Radiation and Public Health Project was founded in 1985 by Jay M. Gould, a retired statistician. The group's first tooth study, done in Suffolk County in 1999, found that strontium 90 levels had dropped steadily in the first 20 years after the nuclear test ban but had been creeping up since the mid-1980's, a finding that Mr. Mangano said has been repeated in every study they've done since then, across several states.
In 2001, a cache of 85,000 old teeth turned up in an old munitions bunker in, believe it or not, Eureka, Mo. Dr. Commoner recommended that they be given to Mr. Mangano's group for analysis. Mr. Mangano said it would cost about $50,000 to track down and study the health of 400 of the old donors. (The 82,000 teeth not in Mr. Mangano's living room are being stored upstate.)
The Radiation and Public Health Project has its teeth tested at a radiochemistry laboratory in Ontario. There they are washed, dried, ground, dissolved in nitric acid and treated with chemicals that help locate the strontium.
But John Matuszek, a retired director of the New York State Health Department's radiological sciences laboratory who was hired by Suffolk County to evaluate the Radiation and Public Health Project's research proposal there, said he found that the proposal had a host of basic scientific flaws.
Dr. Matuszek said that the proposed sample sizes - a single tooth, as opposed to the 90-tooth batches used in the St. Louis study - were too small to yield detectable amounts of strontium 90. And that the detectors they used were incapable of differentiating between strontium 90 and some naturally occurring radioactive compounds, and that the error margins they claimed were implausible.
The conclusions the group drew, Dr. Matuszek said, "have nothing to do with cancer cases."
Hari Sharma, the radiochemist the group uses, said the precautions he had taken were more than adequate to screen out false positives and other errors.
Mr. Mangano said Dr. Matuszek had been enlisted by health officials in Suffolk County who "were determined that we not receive those funds and test those teeth."
The group has its defenders. Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and a professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois, has reviewed some of Mr. Mangano's papers for journals. He called the group's research "good, careful work."
"While they were somewhat overexuberant in their initial stuff," Dr. Epstein said, "they've calmed down and I think they are producing solid scientific work that stands critical peer review."
In the eyes of Mr. Mangano's group, it is the government that has the proven credibility problem. For decades, he said, officials lied or withheld the truth about the extent of civilian exposure to nuclear tests and its health consequences. In 1997, for example, the government belatedly acknowledged that radioactive iodine from nuclear fallout caused thyroid cancer in 10,000 to 75,000 Americans.
"National security considerations are sometimes placed before health concerns," Mr. Mangano said. "These are very inflammatory comments but that's the way it is."
Matt Ahearn, the Green Party assemblyman from Bergen County who shepherded the group's $25,000 appropriation through the budget process, said the debate over their work did not bother him.
"There's corporate junk science and the people's junk science," he said. "Take your pick."
-------- britain
BAE System's Dirty Dealings
By Sasha Lilley
CorpWatch
November 11, 2003
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=9008
It sounds like the stuff of pulp fiction: The UK's largest armaments producer running a £20 million ($33.4 million) slush fund to finance prostitutes, gambling trips, yachts, sports cars, and more for its most important clients the Saudi royal family and their intermediaries, greasing the wheels of the largest business deal in UK history. These are the accusations made last month by a former employee of weapons giant BAE Systems. And evidence has surfaced that members of the British government were aware of the bribe arrangement, but looked the other way.
BAE Systems, formerly known as British Aerospace or BAe, is one of the world's top arms producers. It manufactures warplanes, avionics, submarines, surface ships, radar, electronics, and guided weapons systems, generating annual sales of £12 billion ($20 billion) in 130 countries. The arms giant was formed as a nationalized British defense corporation in 1977, which was subsequently privatized in the early 1980s, and changed its name to BAE when British Aerospace merged with Marconi Electronic Systems in 1999.
BAE Systems' North American branch has an unusual special relationship with the Pentagon where it is treated as a domestic arms company. According to Ian Prichard of the British Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), "BAES North America appears to be virtually a separate company - even top UK executives are not privy to the more sensitive work carried out by 'their' company in the US."
For years the company has been accused of selling arms to impoverished and dictatorial regimes, polluting the environment, and has been dogged for years by allegations of corrupt dealings.
Now those allegations have exploded into the open. Revelations point to BAE's provision of enticements to the Saudis over a fifteen year period, starting in the late 1980s, using a front company Robert Lee International (RLI), to divert funds to the arms clients and their middlemen. Among other allegations, RLI procured prostitutes for visiting Saudi officials and bought houses for mistresses, while an internal BAE statement reportedly refers to "sex and bondage with Saudi princes". According to documents published by The Guardian, the British government's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) alerted the Ministry of Defense of the possible involvement of BAE's chairman Sir Richard Evans in the bribe scheme, but the Ministry of Defense did nothing.
BAE Systems' chief executive Mike Turner didn't deny the slush fund charges. At a press conference following the revelations, he stated, "They are old allegations and they are old hat. They are history." Turner added, "Everything we do is legal and that is all I am prepared to say. Whatever the law is, we are legal."
Al-Yamamah
The slush fund allegations are tied to the biggest export agreement in British history - the Al-Yamamah (The Dove) arms deals that the British government signed with the Saudi royal family. BAE, then known as British Aerospace, was to sell the Saudis 72 Tornado and 30 Hawk advanced fighter-bombers along with other tranches of military hardware.
In an unusual barter arrangement between the two governments, the Saudis were to purchase the armaments in payments of oil, over an unspecified period of time. Over the last two and a half decades, the deals have amounted to the sale of 96 Tornado Fighters and more than 100 Hawk jets and other training aircraft totaling at least £20 billion ($33.4 billion), with BAE taking in an estimated £1.5 billion a year. BAE is currently in negotiations with the Saudis for a further extension of the Al-Yamamah deal.
The first Al-Yamamah deal was signed in 1986, when the Saudis' main armaments supplier, the United States, was blocked from selling arms to their longtime ally by an historic Congressional vote. The House of Saud turned to British weapons manufacturers instead. The Saudis were happy to reduce their dependence on the US, while the UK saw the petrodollar-rich Saudis as a long term bonanza. A second deal between the two governments was signed in 1988. Some analysts believe that Al-Yamamah kept BAE afloat through the 1990s when the company was facing financial difficulties. Rotten from the Beginning
While armaments transactions are known to be fraught with bribery, British journalist and arms trade opponent Gideon Burrows states that Al-Yamamah "may be the world's most corrupt deal". And while the scandal around allegations of the BAE slush fund are particularly lurid, accusations of corruption date back to the creation of Al-Yamamah I and II, as they've come to be known.
According to former CIA operative Robert Baer much of the money that BAE registered as earnings from Al-Yamamah was earmarked from its inception for kickbacks to members of the Saudi royal family and other intermediaries. "[Al-Yamamah] was a huge commission-generating machine. British Aerospace overcharged for its hardware and spare parts, with the difference going to commissions."
The Saudis are not the only ones who may have profited from Al-Yamamah kickbacks. In 1994 MP Tam Dalyell accused the son of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of receiving a £12 million commission from the Al-Yamamah deal, but the government declined to investigate the charges against Mark Thatcher. Less fortunate was British Defense Procurement Minister Jonathan Aiken who played a key role in setting up Al-Yamamah II. He was imprisoned in 1993 for letting the Saudis pick up his tab at the Paris Ritz.
The British government and BAE have been criticized from the start by arms watchdog groups for selling weapons to a despotic, theocratic regime. Amnesty International characterizes Saudi Arabia, the world's top arms buyer, as a major violator of human rights: "Summary, unfair and secret trials are the norm in Saudi Arabia and torture is a common practice to extract confessions from suspects. Defendants facing capital charge are invariably convicted after trials which lack the most basic standards of fairness." A 1995 Channel 4 "Dispatches" documentary revealed that BAE tried to sell electric shock batons to Saudi Arabia two years earlier, which could be used for the torture of prisoners.
Hawk Jets
If the current allegations of the Saudi slush fund weren't bad enough, BAE is in the center of another storm of controversy. This summer, BAE finally clinched a highly contentious deal to sell 66 Hawk jets to India - for which the poverty-stricken nation paid £1billion ($1.7 billion).
The agreement, which threatened to fall through a number of times, was helped along by the intervention of the British government. In 2002, in the midst of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir that threatened to turn into a nuclear war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the two countries ostensibly on a peace-making mission. However, as the Indian media revealed, he used the visit as an opportunity to promote the sale of BAE Systems Hawk jets, as did his Foreign Secretary Geoff Hoon later in the year.
"The same time that the prime minister and the foreign secretary have been over in India trying to play a role as a peace broker in the Kashmir crisis, we've also in effect been acting as an arms broker," says Andy McLean of the London-based think tank Saferworld. "And the government has been directly pushing the sale of jets which we will know could be used both directly in Kashmir and also will be used to train Indian pilots to fly much more deadly fighter jets which could also be used in Kashmir and potentially which could be used to carry nuclear weapons."
McLean says that BAE Systems' dealings in India are not an anomaly. "The Hawk jet [has] almost become synonymous in the UK with scandal in the arms trade," he says. "It was Hawk jets that were licensed for export to Indonesia and were then found after years of protestation from human rights groups to have been used to intimate the civilian population in East Timor. This was denied by the government for years but was then actually admitted by the Indonesian armed forces."
The British government also allowed export licenses for the sale of BAE's Hawk jets to Zimbabwe, which is was later forced to revoke Zimbabwe became involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. BAE has targeted other poor African countries for arms sales. "It was also British Aerospace which manufactured the military radar system that has cost the Tanzania people £28 million ($46.8 million) that could have been used on providing fresh water and vaccinations for the population there," says McLean.
Government Role
Business between BAE and the governments of impoverished countries like Indonesia, Zaire and Tanzania would not be possible without the sanctioning of the British state, which must issue export licenses for such sales to go through. Fortunately for BAE, the UK government - the world's second largest arms exporter - is a most faithful ally, promoting BAE's interests through the Ministry of Defense's Defense Export Sales Organisation (DESO), whose role is to encourage the sale of British weapons abroad.
BAE and other arms companies get further assistance from the British government's Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD) which underwrites the transactions between the weapons companies and potentially unreliable buyers, loaning out UK tax payers' money for the foreign purchase of British-made arms. BAE has received more Export Credit Guarantees than any other UK company in recent times.
The Blair Labour government has proved itself as steadfast a supporter of the arms industry in general, and BAE in particular, like the governments of its Conservative predecessors Margaret Thatcher and John Major - The Observer refers to BAE chairman Sir Richard Evans as "one of the few businessmen who can see Blair on request". Before its ascendancy to power, the Labour government promised to publish the conclusions of a 1992 investigation into charges of corruption by BAE in the Al-Yamamah deals by the National Audit Office (NAO). However, the audit has never been published.
The Blair government has defended its backing of the arms industry by claiming that companies like BAE Systems play a central role in the economy. Arms critic Richard Bingley and former member of CAAT disagrees. "On the face of it, the arms export business is reckoned to be quite lucrative, its worth about £5 billion to the UK Exchequer every year. However, when you take away overheads and then also look at the fact that the arms trade is subsidized by about £1 billion per year by the UK Exchequer, actually you begin to see there's no profit line by exporting arms. So literally, it is at best an industry that pays for itself." Under Fire
Despite the British government's ongoing support for BAE, pressure is mounting on the armaments giant. Adding to the embarrassment of the slush fund scandal, activist groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Friends of the Earth UK are putting the spotlight on BAE's role in perpetuating armed conflicts around the world.
Earlier this year, Friends of the Earth UK launched a campaign against BAE's production of depleted uranium shells which have been used by British soldiers in Iraq. Hannah Griffiths, corporate campaigner at Friends of the Earth UK, said: "We want the directors of companies like BAe to take their duties to communities and the environment as seriously as they do their duties to the company's bottom line".
The Campaign Against Arms Trade has also been targeting BAE with protests at 40 sites all across England, Wales and Scotland that belong to BAE or its subsidiaries, accusing BAE of fanning the flames of war.
Meanwhile BAE has also targeted CAAT. The Sunday Times (London) revealed in September that BAE paid a private intelligence firm £120,000 a year to infiltrate and spy on CAAT over a four year period in the 1990s. The head of the firm told BAE that she had a database containing more than 148,000 names and addresses of arms trade and peace activists, environmentalists and union members. CAAT issued a statement denouncing BAE's actions. "The alleged theft of the supporter database, by copying it, is illegal and entirely unacceptable. CAAT is considering how to pursue the allegation," it said. A New Al-Yamamah
In spite of the recent bribery revelations, BAE is intent on pressing ahead with a new Al-Yamamah deal with the Saudis, according to a statement by the Swiss investment bank UBS.
In the last decade and a half the Saudis have had difficulties holding up their end of the arms-for-oil bargain, as the price of petroleum has fluctuated and the Saudi domestic debt has continued to mushroom, while arms purchases gobble up a third of the national budget. However, recently Saudi Arabia's fortunes have been buoyed by higher oil prices, while their relationship with their other main weapons supplier has gotten chillier. "Now that the US is on the outs with the Saudis and pulling US troops out of Saudi Arabia, the Saudis are looking more to Europe for their defense needs," says analyst Frida Berrigan of the Arms Trade Resource Center in New York.
The new agreement would be to upgrade 85 Tornado fighter planes that were purchased in an earlier Al-Yamamah deal. If it goes through it would be a boost to the beleaguered weapons giant, which has been having difficulties arranging a merger with a US defense company. But it would be anything but a boon for British taxpayers, who would continue to subsidize BAE, or the Saudi populace, who would see none of the kickbacks flowing to the House of Saud -- just the further perpetuation of the royal family's corrupt rule.
Sasha Lilley is Research Coordinator/ Editor at CorpWatch and a Producer for Pacifica Radio's KPFA.
CorpWatch
1611 Telegraph St.,
#702 Oakland, CA 94612 USA
Tel: 510-271-8080
URL: http://www.corpwatch.org Email: corpwatch@corpwatch.org
-------- depleted uranium
IRAQ: Worse Could Follow, Says New Study
Sanjay Suri,
Nov 11, 2003
(IPS)
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21031
LONDON - The consequences of the war on people's health may be felt for generations, says a report by the medical charity Medact.
The number of deaths and injuries during the conflict and in its aftermath have been high, but "the full effects of war on health are felt through many other less direct but potentially equally or more deadly pathways," says the report released in London Tuesday.
"The full impact of the war on health will not be known for years," the report adds.
Medact, which includes doctors and other health professionals, points to a death and injury toll that is far higher than many people imagined.
The group estimates a total of between 13,500 to 45,000 Iraqi military deaths from March 20 to May 1, with about three times as many injured. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths during this period is between 5,708 and 7,356, the report says. In the post-conflict phase, there have been between 2,049 and 2,209 deaths, the report says.
The U.S. and British toll was 172 killed during the conflict and 222 in the post-conflict period from May 2 to Oct. 20, the report says. In addition, the number of U.S. troops wounded is officially 1,927, half of them post-war, the report says, adding that the unofficial number is higher.
Besides, more than 6,000 U.S. soldiers have been evacuated due to physical or mental illness, the report says.
But unlike to coalition troops, "very few Iraqi combatants have access to adequate health or social care or long-term rehabilitation services," Medact says.
The legacy of the war continues to kill, injure and damage people in all sorts of ways, the report points out.
One direct consequence of the war is the masses of unexploded ordnance lying around. Cluster weapons, landmines and depleted uranium weapons "remain a potential health hazard for local populations years after the conflict," the report says. "Deaths and injuries from unexploded ordnance are likely to be under-reported."
The condition of a country's environment and physical infrastructure also has a significant and direct impact on its people's health, the report says. It points to the dangers from destruction of water and sanitation systems.
"Smoke from oil well fires and burning trenches caused air pollution and soil contamination," the report says. "Heavy bombing and troop movements degraded natural and agricultural ecosystems."
The study finds that "malnutrition, which results from low food intake or an unbalanced diet or both is a major determinant of poor health in Iraq."
Mental and physical health is being damaged further. "People suffering from the immediate impact of war are more susceptible to further health hazards and less able to mobilise their own resources for survival and reconstruction," the report says.
The study finds that shortages of clean water, adequate food and power lead to an increase in certain diseases that is likely to result in more deaths than caused directly by the conflict.
The short and long-term physical health effects feared include disability, infectious diseases, stillbirths, underweight newborns, diseases of malnutrition, and possibly more cancers.
The mental consequences include post-traumatic stress reaction, psychiatric illness, behavioural disturbance and developmental delays in children. "With unemployment above 60 percent, the vicious circle of ill health and poverty is reinforced," the report adds.
"Security remains the country's main health issue, both as an underlying reason for seeking medical care and in limiting access to services," Medact says in its report. "Since the war robbery, burglary, kidnapping and violence have been widespread. The U.S. has too few soldiers and only 150 of the 400 law courts are believed to be in operation."
There are a reported 15 to 20 daily attacks on coalition forces and 15 to 25 civilians shot dead in Baghdad every day, the report points out. "Since the end of the war the Baghdad morgue reports 500 excess deaths per month."
The study warns of the "less visible aspects such as disruption of individual and societal development."
The bombing tactics of "shock and awe" generated acute anxiety among Iraqi civilians and combatants "that will trigger a significant increase in common mental disorders of anxiety and mood disturbance," the report says.
"Long-term morbidity will include more suicides, greater disability, increased drug and alcohol abuse and more social and domestic violence - major obstacles to the restoration of a stable society."
The incidence of behavioural and emotional disorders is likely to be high among children and adolescents, "interacting with broader issues of moral breakdown, violence and educational failures."
Medact calls on authorities to establish a health sector based on the principle that health and health care are basic social rights. It is asking for health information systems to monitor disease patterns, and an assessment of chemical risks and contamination.
Medact says the authorities in Iraq must give social and political reconstruction the same prominence as economic reconstruction.
----
Iraqi Death Toll, Health Perils Assessed by Medical Group
by Jim Lobe
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
by OneWorld.net
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1111-10.htm
WASHINGTON -- Between 21,000 and 55,000 people have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, according to a new report that also warned of rapidly deteriorating health conditions for those who survived.
London-based Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), concluded that the war's continuing impact--particularly the failure of occupation authorities to ensure security-- has resulted in a further deterioration of the Iraqi population's health status. IPPNW's U.S. affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility, joined in the report's release Tuesday. The report's funding was provided by Oxfam and the Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation.
"The health of the Iraqi people is generally worse than before the war," according to an executive summary of the 12-report, which noted that the state of health in Iraq was already poor by international standards. It said women and children were particularly at risk due to the breakdown in law and order and damage to infrastructure and that women were also being affected by the emergence of religious conservatism after the war.
The report, entitled "Continuing Collateral Damage: The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq 2003," is the follow-up to a pre-war study released last November that predicted at the time that between 49,000 and 261,000 people could be killed in an invasion of Iraq over three months.
The much lower estimated death toll in the seven months that followed the March 20 invasion is due primarily to the quick collapse of Iraqi military resistance and the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were used.
The report says that 172 U.S. and British combatants were killed during the war period (March 20 to May 1) and another 222 died between May 2 and October 20. It estimates the number of civilians killed during the war at between 5,708 and 7,356. From May 2 to October 20, the report estimates civilian deaths resulting from hostilities at between 2,049 and 2,209.
The major unknown, according to the report, is the number of Iraqi military deaths during the war. As few as 13,500--or as many as 45,000--soldiers and paramilitary fighters are believed to have been killed, based on extrapolations from death rates of between three and ten percent found in the units around Baghdad, as well as U.S. military estimates that 2,320 Iraqi soldiers were killed in and around Baghdad alone. In the absence of official body counts, "the final toll will probably never be known" the report concluded, noting that the Iraqi Red Crescent is currently exhuming mass graves to identify Iraqi war dead around Baghdad and elsewhere.
In addition, thousands of combatants on both sides, as well as civilians, suffered serious injuries, including amputations and mental trauma, according to the report. It noted that one source, Iraq Body Count, estimated at least 20,000 civilian injuries by July, of which 8,000 were in Baghdad alone. Deaths and injuries from unexploded ordnance have continued, and are likely to be under-reported, according to the independent Mines Advisory Group (MAG).
The report estimated the number of Iraqi military wounded at roughly three times the death toll.
The full health impact of the war, however, continues to be felt in a variety of ways that defy precise monitoring due to the lack of accurate data, the failure of occupation authorities to collect and record data, and the inability of the Iraqi health system to cope with the number of people who need treatment.
"Limited access to clean water and sanitation, poverty, malnutrition, and disruption of public services including health services continue to have a negative impact on the health of the Iraqi people," according to Dr. Sabya Farooq, the report's main author.
Environmental damage, including extensive pollution of land, sea, rivers, and the atmosphere--some of which may have spilled over to neighboring countries--is also a major concern covered by the report. Oil well fires created oil spills and toxic smoke, while military convoys disrupted the desert economy. Land mines and other ordinance have maimed people and animals and continue to pose a hazard in various parts of the country.
Particularly worrisome are the remains of some of the military debris, particularly depleted uranium used in weapons and armor, and material looted from nuclear power plant sites, much of which remains to be accounted for.
"The health and environmental consequences of the war will be felt for many years to come," said Medact president, Dr. June Crown.
The report expressed particular concern about the health of young children. While Iraq had built one of the most advanced health systems in the developing world before the first Gulf War in 1991, that war and the sanctions that followed had a disastrous impact on its performance. One in eight children under five died before their fifth birthday; one in four was chronically malnourished; a quarter of all newborns were underweight; while maternal mortality stood at 294 for every 100,000 births, roughly the same level as Peru and Bangladesh.
In the immediate aftermath of the most recent war, small-scale studies found a dramatic increase in waterborne diseases, including typhoid and cholera and a doubling of acute malnutrition or wasting--problems to which young children are particularly vulnerable.
The report makes a series of recommendations to the occupation authorities, noting that, with the influx of new resources and the end of sanctions, health services could be significantly upgraded once security is assured. But it expresses concerns about the heavy participation of for-profit companies, mostly from the U.S., that have been awarded contracts to provide services and technical aid in the health sector.
The successful post-World War II reconstruction of Europe and Japan, it notes, included substantial investment in public health systems. "On the basis of international evidence," it urges, "commercialization of health care should be avoided."
Reconstruction of the Iraqi health sector, the report recommends, should be based "on the principle that health and health care are fundamental social rights... and an important aspect of nation-building..."
----
DU shipping and transport
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003
From: "Tara Thornton" <Tara@miltoxproj.org>
Depleted Uranium Munitions Action Plan
The United States military does not want civilian populations to know how and when depleted uranium (DU) munitions are being shipped through their communities for fear of "unnecessary public concern about the radiation risks associated with DU munitions." Normally this type of shipment would be labeled with both Department of Transportation (DOT) "Radioactive" and "Explosive" placards. Branches of the U.S. military, however, have a special Department of Transportation exemption, DOT-E 9649, which allows them to ship DU munitions without the "Radioactive" placard. The exemption must be renewed every few years by the DOT and the Military Traffic Management Command.
The current DU munitions shipping exemption expires on June 30, 2004. Public pressure could force the DOT to not renew the next application for exemption by the Military Traffic Management Command.
Why should we care about DU shipments while devastation continues in foreign countries from the actual use of this radioactive weapon? By understanding the danger of shipping DU through our neighborhoods, we will better understand the damage done by firing DU in neighborhoods in other countries in our name.
By identifying shipments of DU munitions en route to military bases inside the United States for deployment overseas, we open the opportunity to expose and eventually stop the shipments.
What to do...
Contact the Department of Transportation Exemptions division and ask that the DOT immediately terminate and not renew DOT-E 9649. Depleted uranium munitions should have a "Radioactive" placard and an "Explosives" placard on shipments. Depleted uranium is an extremely toxic material and much more dangerous when shipped with an explosive propellant as in the case of DU munitions. In case of a fire, first responders (local police and fire fighters) would have no idea the shipment contained radioactive material.
Send correspondence regarding DOT-E 9649 to:
Mr. Delmer Billings DHM-31
Director, Office of Hazardous Materials Exemptions and Approvals
Department of Transportation
400 7th St. SW
Washington, D.C. 20590
Fax: (202) 366-3308
E-mail: delmer.billings@rspa.dot.gov
Please also (if you want) send a copy to info@gzcenter.org
Please share this information with others and local officials.
DU Shipping information
Depleted uranium (DU) munitions are deployed by the United States military in a number of weapons systems in various locations in the United States and other nations. DU munitions, in our time of endless war, are shipped on a daily basis on our nation's highways, railways, waterways, and through foreign nations.
DU munitions are a uniquely hazardous material, consisting of a radioactive penetrator which breaks down into small particles when burned, and an explosive charge or combustible propellant in the shell of the cartridge. In an accident scenario, DU munitions on our highways or railways can burn and spread radioactive material. The DU shipments are, in essence, the "dirty bomb" that our government warns us about.
In the case of an accident involving a fire, it is very likely the driver would be incapacitated. The driver would not be able to communicate to others that radioactive material is involved in the fire, making it impossible for first responders to correctly control the fire and protect the public from radioactive material.
Three U.S. government documents best describe the purposes and dangers behind DU shipments and DOT-E 9649.
U.S. Military Reasons for DOT-E 9649
The original application to the DOT in 1986 from the Military Traffic Management Command stated three reasons for the special exemption for DU munitions. The application for exemption also showed the U.S. military knew in 1986 that DU munitions shipments were a potentially controversial issue.
A letter from the U.S. Army Military Traffic Management Command dated August 11, 1986 stated, "There are three reasons for transporting DOD DU munitions without drawing public attention by placarding trucks or marking munitions containers as radioactive. First, marking the outside of the DU munitions containers as radioactive may create friction with foreign governments when foreign nations handle DU munitions during shipping, loading or unloading. Secondly, we do not want to generate unnecessary public concern about the radiation risks associated with DU munitions. Thirdly, we do not want to raise public concerns by placarding trucks with the words "Radioactive" and "Explosive" since the combination of these two hazard class placards may be construed to mean that nuclear weapons are being shipped when this simply is not the case."
The Danger
A May 14, 1984 Material Safety Data Sheet on depleted uranium stated the hazards of a fire involving DU.
8. Should DU be handled in powdered form or should a DU penetrator oxidize resulting from a penetrator's involvement in an accident such as a fire, then the intake of DU aerosol or ash via inhalation, ingestion or absorption presents an internal hazard.
9. Depending upon the solubility of the particular DU compound in body fluids, it may also be toxic, particularly to the kidney.
10. Should an accident occur or DU corrosion be discovered, clean up and decontamination should be performed only by authorized personnel.
11. Anyone who may have inadvertently come in contact with material that is potentially contaminated with DU should be surveyed for contamination by authorized personnel as soon as possible, remove any clothing which may be contaminated, wash hands, arms, face and any other exposed parts of the body with soap and water. Do not eat, drink, smoke or apply cosmetics before being satisfactorily decontaminated.
The August 2002 Navy Radioactive Materials Permit contains a supplement showing the hazardous potential of a fire involving the shipment of DU. The Navy permit application dated August 21, 2002 contained a lengthy but informative section, applicable to any situation involving the combustion of DU.
Transportation Accident/Incident w/Fire
When involved in a fire, depleted uranium (DU) may oxidize, generating a downwind hazard in the form of a DU oxide dust plume. The significant health hazards associated with the dust plume are; 1) heavy metal poisoning from inhalation of the dust, and 2) the radiological hazards associated with inhalation of the dust. First responder personnel should adhere to the following information when approaching the scene of a DU fire.
a. First responders should approach the scene from upwind and assure all non-emergency personnel are evacuated from all downwind areas. First responder personnel should wear self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) respirators to protect against inhalation of any DU oxide dust or remain upwind of the fire. Evacuate the immediate vicinity of the accident and notify the emergency number identified on the DD form 836. In the event that the DD form 836 is not available the on-scene commander should notify the traffic manager at the nearest military base.
b. Because, the complete round of DU ammunition contains explosive propellant an explosive hazard exists when fire is present. In this case, remain upwind and assure that essential and non-essential personnel are moved to a safe distance as listed on the DD form 836, Fire Fighting Instructions. Use any available method to stay upwind of the smoke plume.
c. Each hazardous material shipment made by the Department of Defense requires the vehicle driver to have in their possession a DD form 836, Fire Fighting Instructions. The DD form 836 contains the necessary withdrawal distance for on-scene emergency personnel and public. The on-scene commander will assure these distances are strictly adhered to. The on-scene commander should establish a cordon of the accident area and assure all personnel are evacuated from the downwind side. The cordon can be increased to limit the effects of wind changes or adverse weather conditions. Establish an entry control point and monitor all personnel entering and exiting the hazard zone. Evaluate the fire scene and determine what actions or non-actions to initiate. In most cases, fire and ammunition don't mix and fire fighting personnel are relegated to observer status to assure the fire doesn't spread or become more serious.
d. Contact the nearest Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit to inspect the load and determine the extent of damage. Navy EOD personnel are trained in make-safe operations involving depleted uranium ammunition. Navy EOD personnel will also make all contacts to coordinate clean-up and disposal actions required by U.S. Army Technical Assistance Team.
e. The establishment of a radiation contamination control line (RCCL) should be established near the cordon entry control point and outside of the contaminated area. The number of emergency personnel who are to pass over the RCCL should be kept to a minimum. All personnel evacuated from the established cordon should report to the RCCL radiation contamination for screening. The names, addresses, telephone number and monitoring results of all personnel passing through the RCCL shall be recorded, whether contaminated or not.
f. Personnel injured in the accident will be evacuated through medical channels. Injured personnel evacuated from the accident scene should be wrapped in a white sheet and tagged to identify possible exposure to DU contamination. Medial treatment for serious injuries takes priority over contamination surveys and decontamination efforts.
g. All materials including soil, clothing, packaging, pallets, vehicles and dismembered parts, etc. shall be surveyed and declared radioactive free. Contaminated materials should be disposed of per OPNAVNOTE 5100, Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLWR) Disposal Program. All materials found to be radioactive free may be disposed of through normal methods.
h. Once the fire has been extinguished, a smaller controlled area around the accident site must be maintained, until it has been surveyed by EOD and radiological personnel and declared contamination free or the area decontaminated per local, state and federal laws and regulations.
i. All emergency response personnel may be contaminated with DU. Some of the personnel may sustain injuries while working at the scene, they should be decontaminated prior to receiving medical treatment, provided medical personnel concur. All equipment used at the fire scene shall be surveyed for radioactive contamination and decontaminated at the RCCL.
j. After EOD has declared the area safe from an explosive standpoint, radiation surveys will be performed to determine the extent of radioactive contamination. Areas noted to be contaminated shall be marked and decontaminated as soon as possible.
k. The chain-of-command/local military community will assure that waste receptacles are available, and located at the RCCL for disposal of contaminated clothing and equipment. Metal containers with lids should be available with 4 mil plastic linings for solid waste. Radioactive waste should be held at the nearest Department of Defense installation, and disposition instructions requested per OPNAV NOTICE 5100.
l. Damaged ammunition that is contamination free shall be repackaged and reported to the applicable Program Manager, listed in appendix 1 to Supplement 7, for disposition.
m. Specific guidance on packaging damaged DU ammunition may be obtained by contacting the points of contact identified in Supplement 7, paragraph D.3 and D.4.
Not mentioned in the documents is how first responders would have any idea that a burning truck with an "Explosives" placard might contain depleted uranium. This is because the U.S. government does not want anyone to know.
Tara Thornton
Executive Director
Military Toxics Project
P.O. Box 558
Lewiston, ME 04243
(207)783-5091 phone
(207783-5096 fax
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Poulsbo, Washington Website: www.gzcenter.org E-mail: info@gzcenter.org
Traprock Peace Center, Deerfield, Massachusetts Website: www.traprockpeace.org E-mail: traprock@crocker.com
Military Toxics Project, Lewiston, Maine Website: www.miltoxproj.org Email: mtp@miltoxproj.org
Nukewatch, Luck, Wisconsin Website: www.nukewatch.com E-mail: nukewatch@lakeland.ws
-------- iran
U.N. Atomic Agency Draws Fire Over Iran
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/content/news/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V4557.AP-Iran-Nuclear.html;COXnetJSessionID=10x5RLV7pyZTurrT2zFvJKN1fDGfBU2I2MYh5UEDnBKJXhCbNVB5!-206000842?urac=n&urvf=10687736894680.5658557475577913
VIENNA, Austria (AP)--The U.N. atomic agency is coming under fire for saying it has no evidence that Tehran tried to make nuclear weapons.
In a report detailing two decades of covert Iranian nuclear activity, the agency said Iran was guilty of numerous secret experiments, including uranium enrichment and the production of small amounts of plutonium that effectively put the nation in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
But the document, presented this week to the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors, also praised Tehran for cooperation and openness. It said the agency had found ``no evidence'' of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. That stance contradicts the American view that Tehran is not only trying to make such arms but could be just years away from putting nuclear warheads on missiles capable of reaching Israel.
In Washington, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said Wednesday the IAEA finding was ``simply impossible to believe.'' But in Iran officials say it should dispel suspicions their country had a nuclear weapons agenda.
``This proves our claim and removes the possibility for some powers to misuse the situation against us,'' Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said.
The board will be looking closely at the report, written by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, when it meets on Nov. 20. Any finding that Iran violated the nuclear treaty brings with it Security Council involvement.
The Council can impose sanctions as its ultimate weapon. At the least, it could be asked to note concerns about Iran's nuclear program but take no action while the agency continues to probe the country's activities.
The Bush administration wants the IAEA board to take a strong and unified stance, but there is concern now that it may not even refer the matter to the Security Council. One official in Washington, who declined to be identified, said Iran had succeeded in confusing the U.N. agency with its partial disclosures.
Some Vienna-based diplomats from other countries said they understood U.S. concerns.
``Factually, there is no evidence, no smoking gun,'' said one senior diplomat who follows the Iran issue and who declined to be identified. ``But there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, including 18 years spent in the pursuit of fissile material.''
The report outlines nearly two decades of illicit activity disclosed by Iran only recently and under international pressure.
In the last few weeks, Iran has swung from belligerent denial of wrongdoing to acknowledging it made ``mistakes'' by failing to keep the agency abreast of its nuclear programs.
While still maintaining it only wants to generate nuclear power, it has delivered what it says is complete information about past suspect activities, suspended uranium enrichment--a key board demand--and agreed to open its nuclear programs to closer international scrutiny, including unannounced inspections.
The strategy appears to be working. Another diplomat suggested some Western board members normally supportive of Washington did not share America's rejection of the ``no evidence'' clause.
He described ElBaradei's view that there is no direct proof Iran tried to make nuclear weapons as ``an interpretation that has a lot going for it.''
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was expected to discuss the issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell during a meeting Thursday in Washington. On Wednesday, Straw pointed to Iran's recent cooperation with the IAEA, saying ``we should be reacting calmly'' to the report.
In Stockholm, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said the United States has a history of jumping to conclusions, noting the war in Iraq was based on U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
``Experience has shown that that was not so. So one has to be cautious,'' said Blix, ElBaradei's predecessor as IAEA head.
Asked for comment, agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the IAEA was ``standing by the report.'' He refused to elaborate on the leaked but formally still confidential document ahead of the board meeting next week.
One diplomat familiar with the agency said there was some debate by ElBaradei's team on whether to include the ``no evidence'' finding and the decision was made on the basis of ``we're going to be asked anyway.''
On the Net:
IAEA, www.iaea.org
----
UN agency raps Iran but says no evidence of nuclear bomb
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031111130839.dbj07wn5.html
Iran has breached international nuclear accords by secretly making plutonium and enriched uranium but there is no evidence it is trying to build an atomic bomb, the UN's nuclear watchdog reported.
The confidential International Atomic Agency (IAEA) report was released Monday ahead of a November 20 meeting of the body's board of governors, which is set rule on Iran's nuclear activities after a months-long standoff.
The IAEA said Iran had concealed aspects of its nuclear activities and breached a number of international monitoring agreements, including developing enriched uranium and plutonium -- material which can be used to make nuclear bombs.
But the report, made available to AFP, credited Iran for having since October "adopted a policy of full disclosure and decided to provide the agency with a full picture of all its nuclear activities."
At its meeting next week, the 35-nation IAEA board could declare Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a move which could lead to UN sanctions against the Islamic republic.
The United States accuses Iran, which is building a nuclear power plant at Bushehr with Russian help, of secretly trying to develop nuclear arms and wants the matter taken to the UN Security Council.
But a diplomat said that a number of IAEA board member states did not want to pursue such action.
Diplomats said Iran, which denies making atomic weapons and says its nuclear program is strictly peaceful, may escape a non-compliance ruling because it has yielded to key IAEA demands over the past month.
"The report is severe about the problems of the past but appreciative of Iran's cooperation since October 21," said one diplomat.
In September, the IAEA demanded that Iran fully disclose its nuclear program, agree to tougher inspections of suspect sites and suspend the enrichment of uranium.
Iran submitted on October 23 what it said was a full report on its nuclear program, only eight days before an October 31 deadline set by the IAEA for full disclosure.
And on Monday, Tehran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, handed over a letter to agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei pledging to sign an additional protocol to the NPT to allow wider inspections and told him that Iran was as of Tuesday suspending the enrichment program.
The IAEA report said Iran had "concealed many aspects of its nuclear activities with resulting breaches of its obligation to comply with the provision of the safeguards agreement" of the NPT.
But it said: "There is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities... were related to a nuclear weapons program."
However, the IAEA is still investigating the possibility that Iran is hiding an atomic weapons program, said the report.
"Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge enrichment program and for 12 years, a laser enrichment program," the report said, referring to technologies that produce nuclear fuel for reactors but also material for making atomic weapons.
It said Iran made "limited quantities of nuclear material" that "dealt with the most sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment and reprocessing."
A diplomat said the report clearly implies that Iran is in non-compliance but said that the board could issue a condemnation without making a formal declaration that would throw the issue to the Security Council.
"There will surely be a severe judgement of Iran's lack of cooperation until October" but the accent after that will be on Iran's cooperation, especially since no sign of nuclear weapons have been found, the diplomat said.
Another diplomat said the IAEA's aim had been to get Iran to cooperate and since that was now happening "let's not potentially poison the well by going to the Council."
----
Iran produced both uranium and plutonium - IAEA
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031111123748.jzkjaomr.html
Iran secretly produced plutonium in a nuclear program being investigated by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said in a report.
It said Iran had in a letter to the IAEA on October 21 acknowledged the irradiation of uranium at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center "and subsequent plutonium separation experiments" between 1988 and 1992.
"Neither the activities nor the separated plutonium had been reported previously to the agency," said the report, which was released Monday, and a copy of which was made available to AFP.
----
Iran plays down its breaches of nuclear agreements as minor
TEHRAN (AFP)
Nov 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031111135342.xilthkcc.html
A top Iranian official acknowledged Tuesday the Islamic republic's nuclear programme had breached International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) rules, but asserted the failures were only minor and a thing of the past.
"The failures that Iran has been reproached for are minor, and are only in the order of the gramme or milligramme, while in the past some countries had problems with larger quantities of plutonium," Iran's representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted as saying by state television.
"Failures are a normal thing, and the report of last year (by the IAEA) stated failures by 50 states," he added.
The UN nuclear watchdog said in a report Monday that it had so far found no evidence Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons, but the agency was also not ready to certify that Tehran's atomic programme was exclusively peaceful.
The IAEA reported a series of breaches by Iran of international nuclear monitoring agreements, including the secret production of plutonium at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center "and subsequent plutonium separation experiments" between 1988 and 1992.
Also listed as infringements were Iran's enrichment of uranium and the import of certain nuclear materials.
Salehi said these failures only corresponded to "experiments in laboratories which we should have declared to the agency".
"Given that these failures correspond to the past, corrective measures have been taken and therefore this matter is closed," he asserted.
"And taking into account all the information now in the hands of the agency (given to the IAEA by Iran), it is clear that Iran had failed on several occasions and for a long period to meet its safeguard commitments" set out in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), he added.
The IAEA report, which is to be submitted to a meeting next week of the agency's 35-nation board of governors, said the IAEA was still investigating the possibility that Iran is hiding an atomic weapons programme.
The IAEA's executive board of governors could declare Iran in non-compliance with the NPT, which could lead to UN sanctions. But some diplomats said the country may escape a non-compliance ruling as it has over the past month yielded to key IAEA demands.
Crucially, the IAEA report said that until October, Iran's cooperation had been "limited and reactive" but "since that time Iran has shown active cooperation and openness."
The IAEA in September had asked Iran to do three main things ahead of the November 20 meeting: fully disclose its nuclear programme, agree to tougher inspections and suspend the enrichment of uranium that could be used to make an atomic bomb.
Iran told foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany it would cooperate when the three diplomats visited Tehran on October 21 to break the deadlock.
Tehran then promptly handed the IAEA a full declaration of its nuclear activities, and on Monday handed the IAEA a letter agreeing to tougher inspections of its nuclear program.
It also informed the agency it was suspending the enrichment of uranium.
----
Iran guilty but cooperating: UN
From correspondents in Vienna
11nov03
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,7833573%255E1702,00.html
IRAN is guilty of some breaches of international nuclear safeguards but has shown increased cooperation with United Nations inspectors, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report, according to diplomats.
"Based on all information currently available to the agency, it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its safeguards agreements" from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said the report.
The report was written by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei ahead of an IAEA meeting next week that will decide whether Iran should be cited for hiding an alleged nuclear weapons program.
A ruling of Iranian non-compliance with nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreements could lead to UN sanctions against Iran.
In September, the IAEA had imposed an October 31 deadline on Iran to answer all its questions about its nuclear program.
The report said Iran had since October 16 "adopted a policy of full disclosure and decided to provide the agency with a full picture of all its nuclear activities".
"Since that time Iran has shown active cooperation and openness. This is a welcome development," the report said.
In a clear move to avoid sanctions, Iran had on October 23 provided, only eight days before the deadline fell, what it said was a full report on its nuclear program to the IAEA.
Previous to that Iran had "concealed many aspects of its nuclear activities with resulting breaches of its obligation to comply with the provision of the safeguards agreement".
It said that until October, Iran's cooperation had been "limited and reactive".
The safeguards failures included testing uranium enrichment with centrifuges, something the IAEA caught Iran doing when it did environmental sampling in the past few months at a suspect site.
The IAEA discovered "the use of imported natural uranium hexafluoride for the testing of centrifuges at the Kalaye Electric Company (near Tehran) in 1999 and 2002, and the consequent production of enriched and depleted uranium", the report said.
Enriched uranium can be a fuel for nuclear reactors but can also be used to make atomic weapons.
The report said Iran had also failed to report "the import of natural uranium in 1994".
The end result is that Iran has secretly developed a nuclear program with "a practically complete front-end of a nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining and milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, heavy water production, a light water reactor, a heavy water research reactor and associated research and development facilities," the report said.
----
EU says Iran needs to follow words with action on nukes
Tuesday, November 11 , 2003
(AFP)
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=19622&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
BRUSSELS, Nov 11 - The European Commission Tuesday called on Iran to follow its pledges on its nuclear program with action, fulfilling promises to allow unnnounced UN inspections of its nuclear facilities and suspend uranium and plutonium enrichment.
"Of course the more clearly Iran states its intention to sign the additional protocol, the happier we are," the spokeswoman for EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten said.
"We believe it is in Iran's own interest as well as in the interests of the international community. We would like to see the deeds as well as the words with this issue as well as the suspension of Iranian enrichment," Emma Udwin told reporters.
"What we would most like to see is implementation of the very welcome announcement that Iran has made."
Tehran's representative to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday handed in a letter pledging Iran would sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to allow wider and suprise inspections.
Ali Akbar Salehi also told IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei that Iran was suspending its enrichment program.
The United States has repeatedly accused Iran of secretly trying to make atomic weapons, charges Tehran strongly denies.
----
What happens next with IAEA report on Iran
11 Nov 2003
(Reuters)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11266749.htm
VIENNA, Nov 11 - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has circulated a new report on nuclear inspections in Iran ahead of its November 20 Board of Governors meeting.
The report says the U.N. nuclear watchdog has found no evidence of a secret atomic weapons programme but it does not rule out that one exists.
WHAT'S IN THE REPORT
The IAEA report said Tehran had dabbled in activity often associated with arms, like plutonium production.
"Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of low enriched uranium using both centrifuges and laser enrichment processes...and that it had failed to report a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium."
Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium to make it useable as nuclear fuel or in weapons.
In contrast to Tehran's previous denials, the IAEA said Iran also acknowledged some "tests using small amounts of (uranium hexafluoride) had been conducted in 1999 and 2002". The report added that, for decades, Iran received help from sources in four countries with sensitive technology that could be used to develop weapons.
The countries were not identified.
"Iran acknowledged that, starting in the 1970s, it had had contracts related to laser (uranium) enrichment with foreign sources from four countries," the report said.
Diplomats have said Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state that has opted out of signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was almost certainly one of the four countries.
NOVEMBER 20 IAEA BOARD MEETING
The 35-nation Board of Governors will meet to discuss the Iran report. The U.S. is pushing the board to declare that Iran has been in non-compliance with obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Tehran signed in 1970.
Diplomats said the board is divided as France, Britain and Germany have a tacit agreement not to back a non-compliance vote as part of a deal last month under which Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium and accept tougher U.N. nuclear inspections.
Other European and some Asian members of the board are said to stand between the U.S. and the "Big Three" EU states.
WHAT NON-COMPLIANCE MEANS
A country is in non-compliance with its IAEA Safeguards Agreement, a key part of the NPT, when the IAEA is unable to confirm that the country is not diverting nuclear resources to a weapons programme, or when it confirms that a country diverted resources.
Such a finding would require notifying the U.N. Security Council.
The Security Council can issue a statement condemning the country in non-compliance, issue an ultimatum or impose economic or diplomatic sanctions. It can also choose to ignore the issue.
--------
Iran Dismisses Criticism of Nuclear Program by U.N. Agency
November 11, 2003
By NAZILA FATHI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/international/middleeast/11CND-IRAN.html?hp
TEHRAN, Iran, Nov. 11 - The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations nuclear agency today dismissed accusations that Iran had tried to make nuclear weapons. He also said that a failure to inform the agency about how advanced it nuclear program actually was, as cited in the agency's report, was insignificant.
"The failures that Iran has been reproached for are minor, and are only at the level of gram or milligram, while in the past some countries had problems with larger quantities of plutonium," the ambassador, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted as saying by state television.
"Failures are a normal thing and the report of last year by the agency stated failures by 50 countries," he added. In Iran's case he was referring to enrichment of uranium, importation of equipment, including centrifuges, and the building of new nuclear sites.
The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday that it had found no evidence that Iran was producing nuclear weapons but that documents turned over by Iran showed a clear pattern of years of experimentation in producing small amounts of material, including plutonium, that could be made into weapons.
The report concluded that because of Iran's past pattern of concealment it would take some time before it could decide whether Iran's nuclear program was exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Iran announced in mid-October in a meeting with foreign secretaries of Britain, Germany and France that it would cooperate with the agency by allowing unexpected inspections of its sites and suspending its enrichment program. It submitted an official letter stating all its new obligations on Monday to the United Nations in New York.
Mr. Salehi acknowledged that Iran had failed on several occasions and for a long time to meet its safeguard commitments. But he added that the failures belonged to the past and corrective measures were taken.
"Therefore the matter is closed," he was quoted as saying.
A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry also denounced comments by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell who said on Monday that Iranian people wanted their freedom and wanted to be "free of those who have dragged the sacred garments of Islam into the political gutter."
The spokesman, Hamid Reza Assefi, said the comments were a sign of United States' anger of the spread of political Islam in the world.
"American officials' interpretation of Islam and Muslims show that, like other issues such as Iraq, the Middle East and democracy, they do not know anything about Islam and Muslims," he said in a statement, the Iranian Student News Agency reported.
The findings by the United Nations' nuclear agency fell short of backing up the Bush administration's claims that Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover for its nuclear weapons program. But the agency concluded in the report that "given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."
At American insistence, the agency gave Iran until Oct. 31 to reveal all the details of its nuclear program. It is not clear, experts say, whether the voluminous materials turned over to the agency represent all of the evidence that the Iranian government has in its possession or, in the words of one American diplomat, "all that they think we know about."
The report says that Iran admitted to producing "small amounts of low-enriched uranium using both centrifuges and laser enrichment processes," which it had never reported to the agency, a violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. However, low-enriched uranium would require further processing and enrichment to be used in the production of a bomb.
Iran also said it had separated "a small amount" of plutonium, the report said. By comparison, North Korea claims to have separated enough plutonium to make many nuclear weapons, a boast American intelligence agencies say probably overstates the country's abilities. The amounts reported by Iran, if accurate, would not be enough to produce a nuclear weapon.
One American official, who had not read the report, said Monday night that it appeared to be "harshly worded" for the I.A.E.A., which has traditionally resisted criticizing member countries. For example, the report refers to "breaches" that Iran committed by hiding its activities from the agency's inspectors for many years, and falsifying past claims.
David E. Sanger in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
Russia Ready to Help Iran With Nuclear Plant
November 11, 2003
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/international/europe/11RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Nov. 10 - Russia and Iran appeared to draw closer on Monday to an agreement that would clear the way for the completion of a nuclear power plant that Russians are building in Iran.
On a visit here, Hassan Rowhani, leader of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Iran had halted its uranium-enrichment program and was ready to sign a protocol that would be a safeguard against having Iran develop nuclear weapons.
"I can see no obstacles to nuclear cooperation with Iran in this situation," President Vladimir V. Putin said after meeting Mr. Rowhani, although he did not say specifically that construction would proceed.
Mr. Rowhani also said Iran was prepared to agree to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear plants on short notice by the International Atomic Energy Agency. These assurances were similar to those given last month to the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany.
The United States has opposed Russia's program to build nuclear reactors at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, arguing that Iran, a major oil producer, does not need nuclear energy and that the reactors could indirectly help a nuclear weapons program.
In an interview last month with The New York Times, Mr. Putin said that the American concerns were justified and that Russia was seeking a stipulation that spent fuel must be returned to Russia.
But he said, "This doesn't imply that without agreeing upon the principles of our cooperation in this sphere, we're going to suspend all of our programs."
--------
U.N. Agency Reports Iran Made Small Amount of Plutonium
November 11, 2003
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/international/middleeast/11IRAN.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday that it found no evidence that Iran was producing nuclear weapons, but that inspections and documents turned over by the country found a clear pattern of years of experimentation in producing small amounts of materials that could be fabricated into weapons, including plutonium.
The findings by the United Nations' nuclear agency falls short of backing up the Bush administration's claims that Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover for its nuclear weapons program. But the I.A.E.A. concluded in the report that "given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes."
At American insistence, the agency gave Iran until Oct. 31 to reveal all the details of its nuclear program. It is not clear, experts say, whether the voluminous materials turned over to the agency represent all of the evidence that the Iranian government has in its possession or, in the words of one American diplomat, "all that they think we know about."
The report says that Iran admitted to producing "small amounts of low-enriched uranium using both centrifuges and laser enrichmentprocesses," which it had never reported to the agency, a violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. However, low-enriched uranium would require further processing and enrichment to be used in the production of a bomb.
The country also said that it had separated "a small amount" of plutonium, the report said. By comparison, North Korea claims to have separated enough plutonium to make many nuclear weapons, a boast American intelligence agencies say probably overstates the country's abilities. The amounts reported by Iran, if accurate, would not be enough to produce a nuclear weapon.
One American official, who had not read the report, said tonight that it appeared to be "harshly worded" for the I.A.E.A., which has traditionally resisted criticizing member countries. For example, the report refers to "breaches" that Iran committed by hiding its activities from the agency's inspectors for many years, and falsifying past claims.
--------
Iran Had Secret Nuclear Program,
U.N. Agency Says 'No Evidence' of Arms Plans; Probe Continues
By Joby Warrick and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 11, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23686-2003Nov10?language=printer
Iran manufactured small amounts of enriched uranium and plutonium as part of a nuclear program that operated in secret for 18 years, according to a confidential report by a U.N. agency. The report harshly criticizes Iran for deliberately hiding evidence of its nuclear program from international inspectors and for numerous "breaches" in its nuclear treaty obligations.
The 29-page report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says there is "no evidence" so far that Iran had sought to build a nuclear bomb, as asserted by the Bush administration, but the U.N. watchdog said it would keep investigating this claim. Given Iran's "past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," the report says.
The report's catalogue of Iran's nuclear activities shows that the Islamic republic had made significant strides in a program that until last year was barely understood by the outside world. The report, obtained by The Washington Post, documents numerous occasions when Iranian officials altered or reversed their explanations after being challenged by investigators or with conflicting evidence.
"Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge program, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment program," the report says, referring to two of the leading technologies for making fissile material for nuclear power plants or weapons. "In that context Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of LEU [low-enriched uranium], using both centrifuge and laser enrichment processes . . . and a small amount of plutonium."
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes.
The report says that Iran made the plutonium between 1988 and 1992 at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, a laboratory in the capital. Iran said the plutonium was produced during experiments intended to "gain experience in reprocessing chemistry," the IAEA report says. The equipment used in the experiment was dismantled in 1992.
While the amount of plutonium produced was likely minuscule -- far less than needed for a nuclear weapon -- Iran had previously denied conducting any such experiments. Plutonium production is generally associated only with nuclear weapons programs.
The IAEA report was delivered to the 35 member nations of the agency's Board of Governors, which will meet Nov. 20 to decide whether Iran should be declared in violation of its nuclear treaty obligations. At that meeting, the report will be weighed against new signs that Iran has decided to come clean about its past and cooperate with nuclear inspectors.
As the report was being finalized, Iran formally announced several measures intended to ease international concerns about its nuclear intentions. In a letter hand-delivered to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran agreed to snap inspections and unfettered access to its nuclear facilities under an enhanced safeguards agreement called the "Additional Protocol."
The letter also states Iran's commitment to suspend uranium enrichment for an unspecified period. Iran agreed in principle to the tougher inspections and suspension last month as part of a diplomatic initiative led by Germany, Britain and France. Yesterday, ElBaradei praised the Iranian move as "a welcome and positive development."
After meeting with ElBaradei on Saturday, Hassan Rouhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in a statement that Iran was "determined to make sure that the international community is assured of the peaceful nature of its program."
The IAEA report, in assessing Iran's past practices, says the country had repeatedly breached its nuclear safeguard agreements under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory. "Based on all the information currently available to the [IAEA], it is clear that Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations," the report says.
"Iran's policy of concealment continued until last month, with cooperation being limited and reactive and information being slow in coming, changing and contradictory," the report says. "While most of the breaches identified to date have involved limited quantities of nuclear material, they have dealt with the most sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment and reprocessing."
The report notes that although the material would require further processing before being suitable for weapons purposes, "the number of failures by Iran to report in a timely manner . . . has given rise to serous concerns."
Because of that previous concealment, the report says, it is critical that Iran agree to a "particularly robust" verification program of surprise inspections and frequent, intrusive monitoring.
In documents turned over to the IAEA last month, Iran presented a picture of its nuclear history that contrasts sharply with earlier pronouncements. After repeatedly denying having enriched uranium, Iran acknowledged in the documents that it enriched a small amount in 1999 and 2000 at Kalaye, a pilot plant Iran once described as a watch factory. Highly enriched uranium can be used in weapons.
Iran also acknowledged for the first time that it had built a pilot plant to enrich uranium using lasers, something the IAEA had suspected for months. The plant had been dismantled, and soil from the site trucked away, by the time IAEA inspectors visited it last summer.
Weapons experts described the report as deeply troubling, mostly because of the disclosures about how Iran hid its activities from nuclear inspectors.
"It's quite clear now that Iran was engaged in willful and systematic deception over more than a decade," said Michael Levi, a science fellow at the Brookings Institution. "It's a damning report, and the IAEA should be given full credit for its persistence in exposing" the dishonesty.
While encouraged by Iran's recent candor, former IAEA inspector David Albright said he remained suspicious that Iran's leaders still had not told the full truth, especially about possible weapons research.
"Iran has admitted to activities that the IAEA had suspected had occurred, back in the spring of 2003. It may be guessing what it thinks the IAEA already knows," said Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "Overall, Iran's cooperation is a good sign, because it shows that a combination of pressure and incentives is leading to real results. But by no means can you have confidence that the whole picture is known."
Key questions about Iran's past nuclear activity remained unresolved. For example, IAEA inspectors still were not convinced by Iran's explanations for why traces of highly enriched uranium were found at two Iranian facilities during IAEA tests last summer. Iran has acknowledged making only low-enriched uranium, which cannot be used in weapons without further refinement. Iranian officials say the particles of highly enriched uranium came with used nuclear equipment that Iran imported from another, still-unnamed country. Iran has acknowledged purchasing sensitive parts from numerous countries, often using front companies or black-market dealers.
-------- korea
CIA fears North Korea nuke
Story by Jim Wolf
REUTERS USA:
November 11, 2003
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/22809/story.htm
WASHINGTON - North Korea appears to have built one or two nuclear weapons it could be confident would work even without a test nuclear blast, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has told Congress.
"We assess that North Korea has produced one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons and has validated the designs without conducting yield-producing nuclear tests," the CIA said in written replies to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The CIA's August 18 statement was made public recently by the Federation of American Scientists on its Web site (www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_hr/021103qfr-cia.pdf).
Some experts said on Friday they had expected Pyongyang to carry out a test blast just as India and Pakistan did in 1998 to show the world they were members of the nuclear club, but the CIA's statement suggests this is not necessary.
"Testing would confirm (the existence of a nuclear capability) but it's not changing what they already believe," said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.
North Korea is widely reported to have been carrying out nuclear weapon-related tests, short of blasts, since the 1980s to develop what it now says is a nuclear deterrent that is ready to use.
"Pyongyang at this point appears to view ambiguity regarding its nuclear capabilities as providing a tactical advantage," the spy agency said. A test nuclear explosion could spark an international backlash that would isolate the reclusive Communist state further, the agency added.
Robert Norris, who has tracked North Korea's nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defence Council, said it was not surprising Pyongyang had reached this point.
"They've been working on this for several decades," he said.
David Albright, a physicist who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said the CIA statement suggested a belief the North had already "weaponised" a nuclear device that could be dropped from a plane or delivered by missile.
North Korea's envoy in Britain told Reuters in an interview Thursday the North possessed a "nuclear deterrent capability ... powerful enough to deter any U.S. attack."
The latest crisis in U.S.-North Korean relations began in October 2002, when U.S. officials said the North had been pursuing a clandestine nuclear-weapons program that violated its international commitments.
The State Department said on Friday it was optimistic about chances for a fresh round of six-way talks on North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program after Secretary of State Colin Powell met a key Chinese diplomat.
The Chinese official, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, told reporters after his talks with Powell that Beijing was working to set up a new round of discussions among officials from the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and China.
--------
North Korea Nuclear Talks May Restart Dec 10, Report Says
November 11, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-usa-talks.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States and North Korea have agreed to hold a second round of nuclear talks from December 10 to 13 in Beijing, the Asahi Shimbun daily said Wednesday.
Quoting South Korean government sources, the Japanese newspaper said Chinese diplomats were trying to agree the dates with the other countries involved in the six-way talks.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo arrives in Japan for a four-day visit Wednesday.
A separate report from Japan's Kyodo news agency said North Korea had indicated it was prepared to accept talks in mid-December if certain conditions were met.
The report did not specify what the conditions were, but Pyongyang has been pushing for a security guarantee from the United States in exchange for abandoning nuclear arms.
A first round of talks took place in Beijing in August in an attempt to resolve a nuclear crisis that has been simmering since U.S. officials said in October 2002 that Pyongyang had admitted to a secret nuclear weapons program that violated international agreements.
China's foreign ministry said Tuesday it hoped the talks could be resumed by the end of the year.
The six-country talks involve South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, as well as the United States and North Korea.
-------- russia
Russian Jury to Hear Treason Case Against Arms Control Researcher
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23946-2003Nov10.html
MOSCOW, Nov. 10 -- He does not have billions of dollars and his arrest did not shake the foundations of the Russian stock market. But in a spare and cramped courtroom in Moscow, Igor Sutyagin stands trial these days in a case that human rights groups consider as important as that of the imprisoned oil tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Sutyagin, a Russian arms control researcher accused of high treason for allegedly passing secrets to the United States, has already spent four years behind bars. Finally, after many twists and turns, he has his chance to plead his case in what apparently is the first espionage trial to go to a jury in Russia.
A panel of 12 Russians was selected last week to decide the case in Moscow City Court and attorneys will begin presenting evidence behind closed doors on Tuesday. Even before the first witness was called, the trial drew public recriminations last week as Sutyagin's attorneys unsuccessfully sought the removal of the judge on grounds he improperly allowed previously dropped charges to be reintroduced.
While not as internationally renowned as last month's arrest of Khodorkovsky, Sutyagin's case has sparked the same sort of debate about Russia's commitment to the rule of law and the resurgence of the secret services.
Since former KGB agent Vladimir Putin's ascension as prime minister four years ago and then as president, Russia has shown a renewed fervor for espionage prosecutions, many of which international human rights activists consider to be trumped-up political cases. Among those accused, Sutyagin has been jailed the longest without being convicted.
Critics say the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor agency to the KGB known by its Russian initials FSB, has violated standards of fairness in prosecuting Sutyagin and other academics and researchers who have been labeled spies. The FSB has relied on secret decrees that the defendants were not allowed to see, has publicly branded the defendants guilty and put forth only vaguely defined charges, according to human rights groups.
"In this case as well as the Khodorkovsky case, there are a lot of questions about the real reasons for their prosecutions," said Diederik Lohman, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. In Sutyagin's case, at least, "the feeling we have is the FSB is trying to reassert itself in Russian society."
Authorities declined to discuss the case, citing its secret nature.
Sutyagin, 38, of the Institute for the Study of the United States and Canada in Moscow, was arrested in October 1999 for allegedly passing military secrets to the West. Based on the few documents that have become public, the FSB alleged that his work as a consultant for a British firm, Alternative Futures, amounted to espionage, because the firm was purportedly tied to U.S. intelligence.
Sutyagin denied the allegations, saying he did nothing more than collect information from public documents, newspapers and other open sources. His defenders point out that in his job as a researcher, Sutyagin was never privy to secret information.
"There's no evidence he ever had access to any classified documents . . . and it's pretty revealing that four years failed to turn up any evidence," said Victoria Baxter, a program associate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which has taken up Sutyagin's cause.
According to Sutyagin's supporters, the authorities seemed to want to settle the case earlier this year when they tried to persuade him to cut a deal rather than proceed to trial before a jury. Pavel Podvig, a fellow arms control researcher, said authorities offered to free Sutyagin on time served if he pleaded guilty.
Sutyagin refused. "He feels strongly that there is no case and he is not guilty," Podvig said.
The main Russian court to hear the case so far has found the evidence inadequate. After a closed trial, a court in Kaluga, about 100 miles south of Moscow, refused in December 2001 to convict Sutyagin on the grounds that the charges were vaguely formulated and sent it back to the FSB for further investigation. However, it also refused to free Sutyagin in the meantime.
Russian courts have expressed reluctance to sanction FSB charges in several of the spy cases brought in recent years, but in this country judges remain overwhelmingly loyal to the state and rarely rule completely against it.
In February, the Moscow City Court convicted Anatoly Babkin, a university professor, of treason for providing torpedo technology to an American company, but it gave him a suspended eight-year sentence. In August, a court in the Far East city of Vladivostok found Vladimir Shchurov, head of a research institute, guilty of disclosing state secrets for sending an acoustic device measuring ocean noises to China, but he was given a suspended two-year sentence and then freed him under amnesty.
Given the reality of Russia's judicial system, Sutyagin's attorneys decided to gamble on a jury rather than a judge for his retrial. Jury trials, banned for seven decades under the Communists, have begun reappearing in recent years. The first one held in Moscow City Court since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was conducted last summer by the judge now overseeing Sutyagin's trial, Pyotr Shtunder.
"For us, it means more hope for a positive result," said Anna Stavitskaya, one of Sutyagin's attorneys. "Having just a judge, I don't think we can have a fair trial."
Still, Stavitskaya and her colleagues asked for Shtunder to be removed after he seemed to switch gears overnight last week and allowed prosecutors far more leeway in introducing charges previously dropped. "It seems to us that his bosses said to stick to the prosecutor's point of view," she said.
-------- terrorism
Feds Concerned About Dirty Bombs
By John Solomon
Associated Press Writer
November 11, 2003
http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/Wire/031111h.asp
CBN.com - WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite tightened security, terrorists still have a "very significant" chance of obtaining enough radioactive ingredients to create a dirty bomb, federal investigators conclude.
This finding arises from studies that document more than 1,300 disappearances of radioactive materials in the United States over the past five years. Most have been recovered, but some losses remain unsolved.
"The world of radiological sources developed prior to recent concerns about terrorism, and many of the sources are either unsecured or provided, at best, with an industrial level of security," a report written by the Energy Department's Los Alamos lab concluded.
That study and three others by the General Accounting Office, reviewed by The Associated Press, cited significant holes in the nation's security net that could take years to close, even after improvements by regulators since Sept. 11, 2001.
The Los Alamos report concludes that the threat of a so-called dirty bomb that could disperse radioactive debris across a wide area "appears to be very significant, and there is no shortage of radioactive materials that could be used."
Security improvements under way "are unlikely to significantly alter the global risk picture for a few years," it added.
The FBI repeatedly has warned law enforcement over the past year that al-Qaida was interested in obtaining radiological materials and creating a dispersal bomb, most recently after authorities received an uncorroborated report a few weeks ago that al-Qaida might be seeking material from a Canadian source.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Beth Hayden said the agency recognizes the potential dangers of such materials and al-Qaida's interest in them. "There are millions of sources," she said. But she added most of the 1,300 lost radiological materials were subsequently recovered, and the public should keep the threat in perspective.
"The ones that have been lost and not recovered, I'm told, if you put them all together, it would not add up to one highly radioactive source," Hayden said. "These are low-level sources."
The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee says the studies show security efforts fall short of the need.
"Even though for years we have known of the threat that terrorists would use 'dirty bombs' to attack the United States, I am alarmed at the government's inadequate response to this very real threat. The economic and health costs of such an event would be staggering. It appears we don't even know how much material exists that could be used for such weapons or even where it is being kept," Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, said.
The Los Alamos analysis specifically cited concerns about the transportation of large shipments of radioactive cobalt from industrial sites, as well as lax security at hospitals that use radiological devices to treat and diagnose patients.
The GAO, Congress' investigative arm, detailed how terrorists could abuse the legal method for obtaining radiological sources because the NRC takes as long as a year to inspect facilities after it mails them a license for such materials. "It is possible that sealed sources can be obtained for malicious intent," the GAO told the Senate recently.
NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. said the GAO concerns were overstated, focusing on materials with extremely low radioactivity. He said his agency has been taking steps for months to more securely ship and store high-risk sources.
"We honestly think we are doing a very aggressive and excellent job in this area, but we have obviously more to do," McGaffigan said in an interview. "Our view is we don't want to lose any of them, and we are going to have cradle-to-grave controls as soon as we possibly can for high-risk sources."
The government is undertaking its first-ever inventory of who possesses radioactive materials and how much they possess, he said.
The GAO questioned whether the NRC has moved fast enough to secure sealed sources - devices that contain small amounts of radiological materials used in construction and hospitals.
"The number of sealed sources in the United States is unknown because NRC and states track numbers of licensees instead of sealed sources," the GAO told the Senate in August.
Two universities told the GAO about cases in which doors to rooms with nuclear materials had been found unlocked or open.
The congressional investigators found that many of the 114 universities that possess radioactive plutonium-239 have tried unsuccessfully to return it to the government. The Energy Department doesn't have enough secure storage space, the investigators said.
The congressional investigation for the first time tallied the number of times sealed radiological materials have been lost, misplaced or stolen. They found more than 1,300 instances inside the United States since 1998. While most have been recovered, the report cited a handful of harrowing, unsolved losses.
In March 1999, an industrial radiography camera containing iridium-192 was stolen from a Florida home. The camera has not been recovered despite an FBI investigation. The NRC believes the material should have degraded by now and no longer be useful for a bomb.
A North Carolina hospital discovered in March 1998 that 19 sealed sources of radiological material, including the highly dispersible cesium-137, were missing from a locked safe. They have not been found.
Security improvements are being made. For instance, the NRC requires tighter security by companies that use soil analysis gauges that contain radiological materials. There are some 20,000 of them used nationwide by more than 5,100 licensees. The devices are lost or stolen at a rate of one a week, officials said.
The GAO and Los Alamos security reviews made several recommendations. They include keeping licensed sources from getting radiological materials until after they are inspected, improving structural security at high-risk locations and toughening federal, state and international regulatory controls.
"These efforts are unlikely to significantly alter the global risk picture for a few years, although the risks regarding certain sources and circumstances could change more quickly," the Los Alamos study conceded.
On The Net:
Copies of the studies reviewed by AP are available at http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/external/wid.ap.org/index.html
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
----
French terror suspect had photos of nuclear reactor in Sydney flat: report
PARIS (AFP)
Nov 11, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031111103933.nsi5lnmu.html
Australian police have uncovered pictures of a nuclear reactor and a list of bomb-making components in the apartment of a French man suspected of planning terror attacks in Sydney, French radio reported Tuesday.
Europe 1 radio reported the find in the flat of Willie Virgile Brigitte, who was deported last month, as Australian police said they had sent a team of agents to France to interrogate the suspected Islamic militant.
The radio station did not identify the nuclear reactor shown in the photographs, but said the list of bomb-making materials uncovered in Brigitte's apartment were for explosives typically used by the al-Qaeda network.
Brigitte, 35, has been held by French counter-terrorism authorities in a prison outside Paris since he was deported on October 17, after France warned he could have been in Australia for "terror-related reasons".
Media reports have speculated Brigitte was setting up an al-Qaeda sleeper cell, passing on bomb-making skills and considering the possibility of attacking the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, on Sydney's southern outskirts.
"We have deployed some of our members to France as part of ongoing inquiries into the Brigitte matter," an Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said Tuesday.
She refused to comment on a report in the Australian press that the federal police's director of counter-terrorism Tim Morris would join France's top anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere in questioning Brigitte.
Australian authorities are unsure exactly what Brigitte may have been planning during his five-month stay in Sydney, but the head of the country's top spy agency ASIO said last week he was "almost certainly involved in activities with the intention of doing harm in Australia".
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- california
Lawrence Livermore Lab Retains Its Name
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 11, 2003; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23921-2003Nov10.html
The government's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is keeping its name despite efforts by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to rename it in honor of physicist Edward Teller.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) wanted to make the name change a part of the $401 billion defense bill the House passed Friday. He relented after objections from Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), whose district includes the lab; Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the senior Democrat on the committee; and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
Teller, a member of the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb, died in September at 95. Teller also championed the more powerful hydrogen bomb and the space-based missile defense system.
Tauscher and lab officials objected to renaming the facility partly out of fears of slighting the town of Livermore and the memory of Ernest O. Lawrence, who co-founded the lab with Teller.
Susan Houghton, a spokeswoman for the lab, said it was proceeding with plans under consideration since Teller's death to rename a science center or computer facility at the lab after him. The lab is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Local anti-nuclear activists, who had reacted gleefully to the proposed name change, said they were disappointed.
"Lawrence Livermore is a very innocuous-sounding name, so I think it would've been really good if it had the Teller name attached to it, because everyone understands Teller as the father of the hydrogen bomb," said Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, a nuclear disarmament advocacy group in Oakland, Calif.
-------- nevada
Yucca Mountain Site Must Make Use Of Geological Safety Net
No matter what ones thinks of nuclear power the waste problem must be solved
Space Daily
Nov 11, 2003
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-civil-03c.html
Bloomington - A proposed federal repository near Yucca Mountain, Nev., for the long-term storage of 70,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste must take advantage of the mountain's natural geological properties, according to a new study by scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The report, published in the November-December issue of American Mineralogist and largely funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, provides the most detailed three-dimensional picture to date of the minerals most likely to impact long-term waste storage. Conclusions from the paper will likely be used during licensing discussions before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.
"The repository must not place undue reliance on any one portion of the storage system, such as the man-made engineered portion," said David Bish, Haydn Murray Chair in Applied Clay Mineralogy at IUB and the report's lead author. "The long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste will depend on geological and engineered systems that are intertwined in a complex way."
Bish and his Los Alamos National Laboratory colleagues also confirmed that Yucca Mountain's rocks are rich in zeolites -- soft, clay-like minerals with powerful absorption properties.
The mountain's zeolite deposits, which include extensive layers of clinoptilolite and mordenite, have long been considered a major asset that supports any proposed storage facility. This is because zeolites are known to readily absorb a number of positively charged ions, such as radioactive cesium, barium and strontium.
Zeolites also possess some of the properties of sponges, absorbing and releasing large amounts of water. This water can, in turn, absorb much of the heat produced by emplaced radioactive materials, providing an outlet for that energy.
Clinoptilolite and mordenite do not, however, effectively absorb several radioactive ions that are negatively charged or are very large. Bish said that this doesn't necessarily make Yucca Mountain a less desirable waste storage site.
"These zeolites are still one of the most potent natural means of retarding the movement of radioactive ions through rock," Bish said.
Bish also said that understanding the complex geological and mineralogical features of Yucca Mountain is vital to modeling the long-term performance of any storage facility that's built there.
And although the sponge-like properties of Yucca Mountain minerals are desirable for a radioactive waste repository, Bish said a facility that successfully prevents waste migration will require a combination of man-made safeguards and the mountain's natural features.
The researchers took more than 2,000 samples from 17 cored holes across Yucca Mountain, at depths ranging from 20 to 1,800 meters below the surface. They performed X-ray diffraction studies of each sample.
Bish and his colleagues found zeolites are widespread at many depths, but perhaps most importantly, are abundant at a depth considered highly ideal for waste storage -- 300 meters below the mountain surface and 150 meters above the water table. A waste containment area would be built above this zeolitic safety net.
"I'd like to know more about how introduction of a repository into the mountain will change the geology, mineralogy and hydrology, all of which will affect the ability of the mountain to contain the waste," Bish said. "We also need to know more about how water flows through the repository horizon, a zone of rock into which the waste would be placed."
Yucca Mountain is located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, near the DOE's Nevada Test Site. It was initially suggested as a possible high-level radioactive waste repository in the late 1970s. Congress approved the site for waste storage in July 2002.
DOE representatives are expected to approach the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2004 to acquire three federal licenses: one for facility construction, another permitting the storage of high-level radioactive waste and a third for sealing the repository.
"Because the work presented in our paper provides the most comprehensive, three-dimensional mineralogical picture of Yucca Mountain, we believe the paper will probably be used in licensing deliberations," Bish said.
If all goes according to proponents' plans, the Yucca Mountain site could begin receiving radioactive waste as early as 2010. Man