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NUCLEAR
National Uranium Enrichment Facility Comment Period Extended
From power programme to bomb, in a few steps
Australia eyeing possible uranium deal with China
Every day's a battle for sick troops
600 New homes for Llanishen
C.I.A. Says Pakistani Network Aided Iran's Nuclear Program
Buying time
If Iran goes nuclear
Iran suspends uranium enrichment and opens way to fresh nuclear deal
Iran sticks by belief that nuclear arms unIslamic: minister
Bush wants proof from Iran
The west's truce with Iran buys time for both sides, but spectre of
U.N. Official Says Iranians Seem to Curb Atom Activity
Iran Says It Has Halted Uranium Enrichment
Iran Rules Out Complete Nuclear Dismantling
Israel's Dimona nuclear plant is safe: Sharon
Japan edges closer to N Korea sanctions
Japan Nuclear Plant Reaches Safety Pact to Start Uranium Tests
CIA Says Iran, Qaeda Pursued Nuclear Weapons
Congress jettisons nuclear bomb funds
Funds for Atomic Bomb Research Cut From Spending Bill
Nuclear Weapons Money Is Cut From Spending Bill
Allard wants GAO review of Flats cleanup
US Delays Plan to Seek Permit for Nuclear Waste Site
DOE says it won't get Yucca Mountain application in by Dec. 31
In Deal, Aide to Reid To Be Named to NRC
Yucca Foe's Aide Gets Nuclear Panel Post
Sound science on Yucca disposal
MILITARY
Fighting Erupts in West Sudan Despite Accord
China urges EU not to place obstacles in relations by keeping arms ban
Britain Proposes National ID Cards; Critics See a Political Ploy
Queen gives biometric ID cards the green light
Boeing, EADS Likely to Make Tanker Bids
Bush Stops in Colombia, Pledges Aid for Drug War
Bush Praises Colombia's Battle Vs. Drugs
Ukraine on the 'brink of civil conflict'
U.S., Iraqis Sweep Through 'Triangle of Death'
Iraq's Forbidding 'Triangle of Death'
Iraqis Get Lesson in Bureaucracy Senior Executives Share Knowledge
U.S. Starts New Offensive South of Baghdad
Arafat kin blames Israel
Powell: Israel to Cooperate On Vote Palestinians Have Cited Obstacles
An Israeli Hawk Accepts the President's Invitation
U.S. and Iraqi Government Call for Support From Arab Nations
Plutonium stash starts Siberian panic
Big Spending Bill Makes a Winner of Mars Program but Many Losers Elsewhere
C.I.A. Says Pakistani Network Aided Iran's Nuclear Program
Dangerous testing went beyond vets to orphans, prisoners
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
ID CARDS BILL WILL BACKFIRE - OATEN
U.S. Launches Drive to Urge Emergency Plans
Intelligence Deal Remains Elusive
Area Immigration Booming Census Finds Steady Flow Despite Economy, 9/11
More Visas For Foreign Workers Quota Raised to Fill High-Tech Jobs
New Scrutiny At Border Posts Draws Criticism
POLITICS
Spending Bill Held Up by Tax Provision
Queens' speech: The politics of fear
House members ready to contest election if 1 Sen will join in
Thousands of Ukrainians Refuse to Accept Election Results
Widespread Vote Fraud Is Alleged In Ukraine
ENERGY
Portland, Maine, Laundry Uses Solar Energy; Other Firms Go Green, Too
Professor Goodstein discusses lowering oil reserves
ACTIVISTS
Kiev a sea of orange as opposition protests against government win
The People Judge Bush
Suit Filed in GOP Convention Arrests
Violence in Darfur Inspires Surge In Student Activism
-------- NUCLEAR
National Uranium Enrichment Facility Comment Period Extended
November 23, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-23-09.asp#anchor4
Louisiana Energy Services has submitted a license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to construct, operate, and decommission a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility near Eunice, New Mexico, in Lea County.
The proposed facility, called the National Enrichment Facility (NEF), would produce enriched uranium-235 by the gas centrifuge process. The enriched uranium would be used in commercial nuclear power plants.
Enrichment is the process of increasing the concentration of the naturally occurring and fissionable uranium-235 isotope. Uranium ore usually contains about 0.72 weight percent uranium-235. In order to be useful in nuclear power plants as fuel for electricity generation, the uranium must be enriched up to five weight percent.
If the license is approved, facility construction would be scheduled to begin in 2006 and continued for 8 years through 2013. The proposed NEF operation would begin in 2008 with initial production beginning in 2008. Peak production would be achieved in 2013. Operations would continue at peak production until nine years before the license expires, at which time decommissioning activities would be phased in with completion by 2036.
Currently, the only uranium enrichment facility in operation in the United States is located in Paducah, Kentucky, imposing "reliability risks for the supply of domestically generated enriched uranium," according to the NRC in its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS).
The environmental impacts from the proposed enrichment facility are generally "small" to "moderate" and would be mitigated by methods described in the Draft EIS.
The most severe accident would be the release of uranium hexafluoride caused by rupturing an overfilled and/or overheated cylinder, which the NRC says "could incur a collective population dose of 120 person-sieverts (12,000 person-rem) and seven latent cancer fatalities." That means seven people would be likely to eventually get cancer.
"The proposed NEF design would reduce the likelihood of this event by using redundant heater controller trips," the NRC says.
There are no existing surface water resources to contaminate. The NRC says retention basins such as the Treated Effluent Evaporative Basin and the Uranium Byproduct Cylinder Storage Pad Stormwater Retention Basin would be lined "to minimize infiltration of water into the subsurface."
The underlying Santa Rosa aquifer is located about 340 meters (1,115 feet) below the ground surface, and the NRC says no local assessment of the effect of the enrichment facility on the aquifer has been done because it is considered too deep and the overlying clay too thick to permit contamination.
The 480 page Draft EIS is available on the NRC website at: http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ml042510184.pdf
The Commission has extended until December 18 the public comment period because of the temporary unavailability of the agency's public document library on its website.
The original public comment period began September 17 and was to expire November 6. However, the NRC initiated a security review October 25 of publicly available documents to ensure that potentially sensitive information is removed from the agency's site. Documents are being restored in stages as they are screened for sensitive information.
"The NRC remains committed to being an open regulatory agency," said Daniel Gillen, acting director of NRC's Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection. "Extending the public comment period is appropriate to allow members of the public to have time for access to relevant documents while developing their comments on the draft environmental impact statement."
Public comments should be postmarked by December 18 and submitted to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001. Please note docket number 70-3103. Comments may also be submitted by e-mail to nrcrep@nrc.gov, or by fax to 301-415-5397, attention Anna Bradford.
--------
From power programme to bomb, in a few steps
Civil reactor yields materials and technology
The Guardian
Tim Radford, science editor
November 23, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1357516,00.html
Ultimately, all you need for a nuclear weapons programme is an up-and-running civil nuclear power programme. The slide from mushroom-shaped light bulb to mushroom-shaped cloud could be alarmingly easy, according to nuclear experts.
Peaceful nuclear reactors make plutonium as a kind of ash, once they start to burn enriched uranium. A nuclear warhead can be made with as little as 3kg (6.6lbs) of plutonium. The world's peaceful nuclear reactors make about 160 tonnes of the stuff every year.
Or you could make a bomb with highly enriched uranium. This is a bit more demanding because it requires more technology and more time and investment. Uranium is a "heavy" element - so heavy as to be unstable. It is also distributed throughout the planet's crust. But it also occurs in natural concentrations of ores in several continents.
Most of the world's uranium is in the form of uranium-238, which is highly stable. Mixed in with this is a small proportion of uranium-235, which is highly fissile. Civil nuclear engineers have been "enriching" the mix - that is, concentrating the proportion of uranium 235 - using centrifuges, to separate the different weights of uranium. They have been doing so for more than 50 years, to start the critical reactions that provide the heat that gets the turbines spinning to keep the lights on all over Europe and the US.
But a civil nuclear reactor should just burn quietly on or go out. The whole point about a bomb is that it should release all its energy in a split second. So a uranium-based bomb would require far greater concentrations of uranium-235.
And that, said Frank Barnaby - former Aldermaston scien tist and once director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute - would require thousands of centrifuges. This means more investment in telltale hardware, and a few additional skills, but these can be arranged.
"If you have a nuclear power programme, you have the fissile materials. You have to reprocess, but that's a chemical step. Once you start a peaceful programme, it becomes indistinguishable from a military one," Dr Barnaby said.
Wyn Bowen, of King's College London, and a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, agreed. "There are hurdles," he said. "But I think if you have mastered the ability to boost materials for a power programme, then you are very much home and dry."
An atomic bomb is, in effect, a very dense lump of fissile material suddenly made even more dense. A ball of plutonium goes supercritical if you fire a high explosive charge around it, compressing it to much greater density. Two lumps of highly enriched uranium will turn from dead weight into a blinding flash if you slam them together with high-explosive charges. The technology relies on sophisticated electronics, but they are now available everywhere.
"A country with nuclear technology is also almost certain to have explosive technology, and electronics are pretty pervasive. So really it is the level of industrialisation that is important," said Dr Barnaby. "If you have demonstrated a peaceful nuclear technology, you have demonstrated that you have got that level."
In 1995, Iran signed $940m in contracts with the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy to complete a commercial nuclear power plant, and instantly became part of the nuclear weapons proliferation puzzle. Why, the experts began to ask, would Iran, a nation with huge supplies of natural gas, commit itself to an expensive nuclear power programme that could not possibly generate electricity as cheaply as its natural gas programme - unless of course the real plan was to gain the capability to make its own nuclear weapons.
-------- australia
Australia eyeing possible uranium deal with China
AP, Canberra
Nov 23, 2004
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/11/23/2003212228
Australia is considering uranium exports to China and has begun discussions with Beijing on whether it can commit to Australian rules that the product not be used for military purposes, the government said yesterday.
Australian mining company WMC Resources LTD is pushing for the exports to develop its Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in southern Australia, which produces 8 percent of the world's uranium while holding 33 percent of the global reserves.
China currently cannot legally receive Australian uranium exports, and the government must negotiate Beijing's commitment to adhere to strict controls barring the uranium for atomic bombs, depleted-uranium weapons or the propulsion of warships.
Ratifying such a pact could take several months or years.
The talks, which began at the request of WMC, are at an early stage, said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
"We'll only do this where a suitable agreement is in place," spokesman Chris Kenny said.
Australian nuclear nonproliferation officials are involved in the talks with Beijing about whether it can meet Australia's export conditions, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said.
"It's explaining the process Australia requires for uranium sales, and uranium is only sold under a strict regime of bilateral nuclear safeguards agreements," the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.
"I wouldn't want to say that these specific negotiations could be negotiated within a period of months because we don't know what issues China may raise and we don't know to what extent they would agree to a standard text of an agreement," the spokesman said. "We don't have any feel for that at this stage."
Any agreement with China would be scrutinized by Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.
-------- depleted uranium
Every day's a battle for sick troops
Scotsman.com
Julia Horton
23 Nov 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1347792004
AT first glance David Beaton's home looks much like any other in a Lothian village. A few ornaments - two dogs and a horse - are arranged above the fireplace in the lounge. There is a stereo playing near the door with an old heavy metal record propped up against it.
But while the room feels homely enough, one thing is missing.
There are no family photographs. In fact there are no photographs at all. On the kitchen table, among some fruit and a packet of cigarettes, lies the only obvious - and unintended - clue to their absence. It is a printout of an article about Gulf War Syndrome.
Father-of-three Beaton has been forced to move into the house in Easthouses outside Dalkeith following the breakdown of his marriage. He blames the split solely on the fact that he developed the crippling illness after serving in the RAF in the first Gulf War.
Last week, an independent inquiry ruled that the controversial syndrome is real - following years of fighting by the 6000 Gulf War veterans in Britain, including Beaton, who say they developed GWS after being exposed to a multitude of toxins designed to protect them from biological and chemical attack.
The landmark ruling comes too late to save Beaton's marriage. But the 35-year-old hopes that it will save countless other military men and women from going through the same hell - or even worse torments - which he and so many of his former colleagues in the armed forces have suffered.
Speaking about his estranged wife, May, who lives in what was the family home in Edinburgh, Beaton, says: "Due to my illness, me and the missus did separate, about a year ago. The marriage started going downhill because I was suffering from sleepless nights, agonising joint pains, mood swings, because of my illness.
"I didn't always know what was happening, because of the mental and physical effects of the syndrome. My marriage just disintegrated."
Breaking off and looking around his new home, he explains: "I only moved here in August, I haven't unpacked everything yet, a lot of my photographs are still in the garage."
Commenting on last week's ruling from Lord Lloyd of Berwick's inquiry, he adds: "It [the ruling] is helping us [veterans with GWS] because at the end of the day what we want is recognition of our illness.
"I would say that was more important [than compensation]. The main thing for all the veterans is to get that recognition, because the longer it goes on the longer people are suffering and dying and the longer their lives are being ruined like mine was."
Understandably, he is angered by the way the syndrome destroyed his own life, adding: "I do feel angry and there are more in my situation who are probably a lot worse off.
"When you join up you accept that you are going to have to go to war, and you might get injured or shot or blown up.
"What you don't accept is that you will be injected with a lot of different viruses which you know nothing about, working with explosives which are tipped with depleted uranium in an atmosphere where they [commanders] say you should ignore alarms [warnings of dangerous levels of chemical and biological agents] because they are faulty, and you don't have the correct protective equipment."
Beaton's eldest daughter, Angela, who lives with him, is now 19 - about the same age as her father was when he joined the RAF as a weapons technician.
Asked if he thought the military would offer him a glamorous, exciting career he agrees, saying: "I suppose I did. Wearing the uniform, being proud to serve my country. I wanted a military life.
"As a weapons technician I worked with everything from small weapons like rifles to large explosives like sidewinders and missiles in bomb dumps. My job included loading up aircraft with weapons, refuelling them, strapping the pilots in [before they went off on bombing missions], and decontaminating the aircraft when they came back."
That was around 1988, when Beaton was assigned to RAF Lossiemouth. When the call came to fight in the first Gulf War he was based at RAF Bruggen in Germany. The bombing squadron was the first to be sent out to the Gulf, serving there from around August 1990 to May 1991.
Beaton remembers being given a host of injections which he says he took without objecting: "You did not argue, you just did what you were told. You had your apprehensions, but going to war was your purpose, that was why you were there."
Beaton and his squadron were stationed in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain during the fighting. He recalls being ordered to ignore basic safety precautions while being exposed to deadly toxins as he loaded and cleaned planes.
"The tents were sprayed with pesticides, we were using unlabelled decontaminants [to clean the planes] and we were not wearing full individual protective equipment.
"There were detectors the size of jerry cans at the perimeter of the airbase to monitor for chemical and biological agents. But when the alarms went off we were told to ignore them because they were faulty.
"The first few times you masked up, but after that you stopped bothering because you were being told not to because they were not working properly.
"We would be cleaning aircraft without full protective gear, without masks, and offloading shells which were tipped with depleted uranium. We should have been wearing all of the protective equipment. But you did not really worry at the time. You just did your job."
After serving in the Gulf, Beaton was posted back to Germany for a few weeks. During his time off he visited his then-girlfriend, May, whom he proposed to soon afterwards.
The couple married in August 1991 on the Isle of Skye, where Beaton grew up. But over the following months he began to suffer from problems sleeping, moodiness and painful joints.
It was his wife who first realised something was seriously wrong, but for years Beaton tried to ignore his symptoms, such was his determination to continue his RAF career.
However, his condition got worse and worse. Visits to RAF medics failed to bring any clear diagnosis, but when he applied to extend his service with the RAF he was refused.
"They put me down as 'non-applicable'. That did not explain anything.
"I still did not know much about Gulf War Syndrome then because we were not allowed to talk to groups like the war veterans' associations. They [the RAF] must have known something more."
Beaton was left with no choice but to leave the forces in 1997, after which he moved from job to job, including a spell at a bakers. But his working life was marred by "the stigma that goes with the illness".
He returned with his family to Edinburgh in 1999 to be nearer his wife's parents. But Beaton's condition continued to deteriorate and eventually he separated from his wife.
Because of the effects of GWS, which include chronic fatigue, he finds it hard to recall exactly when he was diagnosed or where. He was also diagnosed with ME and depression.
Now he volunteers as area co-ordinator for Scotland at the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, as well as doing voluntary work helping re-home dogs with behavioural problems.
Of the 6000 veterans like Beaton thought to have GWS in Britain, around 2000 are believed to live in Scotland, some 1400 of whom are estimated to live in the Lothians.
Their problems have included cancers, motor neurone disease, chronic fatigue, skin rashes, post-traumatic stress and aching joints.
WHILE last week's ruling is welcome news, the MoD is still refusing to concede that the syndrome is real. Veterans believe its reluctance is linked to the likely multi-million-pound compensation claims which would follow such an admission.
A spokesman for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association says: "Compensation? An official admission by the MoD that GWS exists? An apology? We need all those things... [but] the MoD don't want to pay out what they know is going to cost them a lot of money."
Asked whether the ministry would finally recognise GWS, an MoD spokesman stands firm, saying: "At the moment we are still going over Lord Lloyd's report. So in that respect, we cannot pass an answer - a balanced answer - until we get through this extensive report.
"After all, it has only been three working days [November 17] since the inquiry came out. We will, though, reply in due course."
Which leaves veterans like Beaton little choice but to fight on.
Legacy of illness for war veterans
GULF War Syndrome is the collective name given to a range of health problems blamed by veterans on their exposure to toxins during the first Gulf War.
The problems include cancers, motor neurone disease, chronic fatigue, skin rashes, traumatic stress, depression and aching joints.
They have been put down to a combination of causes, ironically including multiple injections of vaccines given to servicemen and women to protect them from harm.
The syndrome has also been linked to the use of organophosphate pesticides to spray tents, low-level exposure to nerve gas and the inhalation of depleted uranium dust.
The Ministry of Defence has consistently refused to recognise that the syndrome even exists.
But last week an independent inquiry into Gulf War illnesses ruled that the syndrome was real.
The inquiry, headed by Lord Lloyd of Berwick, called on the MoD to accept that thousands of veterans had suffered ill health as a result of the 1991 conflict. In a report he said there was "every reason" to accept the existence of a "Gulf War syndrome", and said the MoD should now set up a special fund to pay compensation.
Gulf war veterans believe that the findings of the Lloyd Inquiry were better than they had hoped for and have called on the MoD to accept its findings. The inquiry was set up at the request of Labour peer Lord Morris of Manchester, parliamentary adviser to the Royal British Legion, after the MoD refused an official inquiry. About 6000 veterans, including around 1400 from the Lothians, are believed to be suffering from the syndrome.
-----
600 New homes for Llanishen
South Wales Echo
Phillip Nifield,
Nov 23 2004
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/1500ichomes/0100newsandfeatures/tm_objectid=14904349&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=600-new-homes-for-llanishen-name_page.html
TWO huge housing developments are on their way to north Cardiff.
Cardiff council has approved two separate schemes drawn up by national house-builders Bellway and Persimmon and the Defence Estates which could see more than 600 properties built in the busy Ty Glas Road area of Llanishen.
At the former Atomic Weapons Establishment site in Caerphilly Road between 330 and 350 homes are proposed.
The scheme also sees the widening of Caerphilly Road to create a second south-bound lane.
During 2002 and last year work was carried out to remove contaminants on the site, including depleted uranium, beryllium and heavy metals.
Chief traffic officer Chris Pike said that the proposed improvements to a section of Caerphilly Road involved widening works to provide two lanes in either direction. Traffic signals are also proposed on Caerphilly Road opposite Waun-y-Groes Road.
Another 300 apartments, town houses and two industrial buildings are planned on the former Selco builder's merchants next to the AWE complex.
Both schemes have been backed by Cardiff's planning committee.
Andrew Williams, one of the leaders of the campaign against bus lanes along the A469 Caerphilly Road, said: "The developments will lead to more traffic being squeezed on to what is already over-stretched road at peak times.
"I don't think the limited widening will have any impact on traffic flows and will really only allow access in and out of the AWE."
Llanishen councillor Jon Burns said: "The use of a brownfield field for housing development is certainly much more preferable than building on the Llanishen reservoir site.
"But I do have concerns about the impact of extar traffic on what is an already a busy area."
-------- india / pakistan
C.I.A. Says Pakistani Network Aided Iran's Nuclear Program
November 23, 2004
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/middleeast/24weaponsCND.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 - A new report from the Central Intelligence Agency says that the Pakistani arms trafficking network led by A. Q. Khan provided Iran's nuclear program with "significant assistance," including the designs for "advanced and efficient" weapons components.
The unclassified version of report, posted today on the agency's Web site (www.cia.gov), does not explicitly say whether Mr. Khan's network had sold Iran complete plans for building a warhead, the network is known to have done with Libya and perhaps North Korea. But it suggests that American intelligence agencies now believe that the bomb-making designs provided by Mr. Khan's network to Iran in the 1990's were more significant than the United States government has previously disclosed.
In a recent closed-door speech to a private group, George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, described Mr. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, as "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden" because of his role in providing nuclear technology to other countries. A tape recording of the speech was provided to The New York Times.
Until now, in discussing Iran's nuclear program, American officials have publicly referred only to the Khan network's role in supplying designs for older Pakistani centrifuges used to enrich uranium. But American officials have also suspected that the Khan network provided Iran with a warhead design. The C.I.A. report is the first to assert that the designs provided to Iran also included those for weapons "components."
The C.I.A. report to Congress is an annual update, required by law, on countries' acquisition of illicit weapons technology. The posting of the unclassified version on the agency's Web site today comes two days before a meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring group, is to review the status of Iran's weapons program.
"The Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions" is the first to be issued by the agency since last November. Its focus is the six-month period from July to December 2003, but it also discusses broader trends.
It does not mention what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described last week as new intelligence about Iran's nuclear program, linking the country's missile program to its effort to find a way to deliver atomic weapons.
The report says the agency remains convinced that Iran is pursuing a clandestine weapons program, despite claims to the contrary by the Tehran government. It says that Iran's stated willingness with the I.A.E.A. is likely to prevent the Tehran government from using its declared nuclear sites to produce weapons, but warns that Iran could nevertheless use covert facilities for those purposes.
The warhead design provided to Libya by the Khan network was for an aging, crude Chinese model. Such a design would nevertheless provide Iran with important assistance in what American officials say is its quest to develop nuclear weapons, a goal they say the Tehran government could reach in the next several years.
The C.I.A. began to infiltrate Mr. Khan's network beginning in the late 1990's, according to the account Mr. Tenet is now spelling out in his speeches. That operation led to the unraveling of the Khan network's ties to Libya and the unmasking last year of Libya's illicit weapons program.
Mr. Khan remains in Pakistan, where he was pardoned last year by President Pervez Musharraf. Libya turned over the design to the United States early this year, and it is now being examined at the Department of Energy, the custodian of the American nuclear arsenal.
But American intelligence agencies are still pursuing questions about the extent of the role the Khan network played in providing assistance to North Korea, Iran and perhaps other customers. A recent report by the I.A.E.A. has noted "several common elements" between Iran's nuclear program and Libya's, which is being dismantled.
Mr. Khan directed Pakistan's uranium enrichment program for 25 years. His role as an illicit supplier of nuclear technology had been widely rumored, but was made public only late last year, when the United States and Britain reached an agreement with Libya that made public the extent of that government's weapons program.
In recent paid speeches, Mr. Tenet has provided new details about the C.I.A.'s role in unraveling the Khan network, according to people who have heard them. The speeches to private groups have been delivered on ground rules that they remain off the record, but a tape recording of remarks he made at a session in Georgia in September was provided to The Times by a person who was there.
In that speech, Mr. Tenet said that the C.I.A.'s role had stretched back to 1997, and that he had kept it secret within the government from everyone but President Bill Clinton and President Bush. Describing a "hidden network that stretched across three continents," Mr. Tenet said of Mr. Khan: "Working with British colleagues, we pieced together his subsidiaries, his clients, his front companies, his finances and manufacturing plants. We were inside his residence, inside his facilities, inside his rooms. We were everywhere these people were."
Mr. Tenet called the agency's role "one of the greatest success stories nobody ever talks about."
A classified version of the C.I.A. report has been provided to Congressional intelligence committees, administration officials said. The unclassified version that was made public today refers only obliquely to several sensitive subjects, including what American officials believe has been North Korea's recent success in building as many as a half-dozen additional nuclear weapons from plutonium extracted from spent fuel rods.
The unclassified report notes only that North Korea announced publicly in October 2003 that it was using the plutonium "for increasing the size of its nuclear deterrent forces."
The document restates long-standing concerns that outside experts, including a Pakistani nuclear engineer, may have provided assistance to the Qaeda terrorist organization as part of its quest to acquire nuclear weapons. "One of our highest concerns is Al Qaeda's stated readiness to attempt unconventional attacks against us," says the report, by the agency's Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center.
-------- iran
Buying time
The West's truce with Iran is a positive step, but the threats posed by nuclear proliferation remain serious.
By Ian Traynor
Nov. 23, 2004
Salon
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/11/23/nonproliferation/index_np.html
Iran's decision to freeze the enrichment of uranium, implemented Monday under intense international pressure, appears to have stalled for the time being the mullahs' moves toward obtaining the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb.
The truce in the 18-month dispute between Iran and the West buys time for both sides -- for Iran to perfect its techniques in readiness for switching the machines back on should its pact with the E.U. break down, and for the nuclear inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western governments to keep probing the Iranian operations and learn more about a 20-year-old program.
The threat of nuclear weapons spreading to hostile regimes is one of the most formidable challenges confronting President Bush as he enters his second and final term. While Bush went to war in Iraq to destroy, among other aims, a nuclear weapons program that had already been destroyed, more advanced nuclear programs have been making headway elsewhere.
-----
If Iran goes nuclear ... Bush softens his rhetoric as new intelligence indicates Iran is accelerating nuclear pursuit.
Christian Science Monitor
By Howard LaFranchi
November 23, 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1123/p01s01-usfp.html
WASHINGTON - As recently as April, President Bush said it would be "intolerable" for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.
Since then problems in Iraq and the presidential campaign have pried attention away from Iran's nuclear ambitions. But now the spotlight is back, intensified by new intelligence suggesting Iran is accelerating its nuclear work. Yet Mr. Bush's recent rhetoric on the topic has been nuanced - gone is the word "intolerable." The shift may suggest two things: first, a realization that diplomatic options are limited, and second, a realization that Iran has tremendous means of influencing events in Iraq.
Despite those factors, the prospect of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon is cause for concern on several fronts, from the role that Iran's Islamic regime sees for itself in the Muslim world and the specific threat it poses to Israel, to the crucial place it holds as a global oil power. But perhaps the greatest risk is how an Iran declaring itself a nuclear power would almost certainly set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
"We need to be much more worried than we have been that what we do with Iran will be a model for others," says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington. "The real problem of Iran is how it sets an example for others to follow in the region."
An "overtly" nuclear Iran could result in a "large nuclear crowd in the Middle East," Mr. Sokolski says: Israel would go public with the nuclear armament it has been mum about, which in turn would put tremendous pressure on Egypt to stand shoulder to shoulder in the nuclear club. Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia - which would feel threatened by Iran's new status - would also feel pressed to ratchet up what are assumed to be varying existing programs.
The potential impact on Israel is also key. "Right at the top I'd put what I'd call the Israel issue," says Daniel Brumberg, an Iran and Middle East expert at Georgetown University in Washington. "If Iran has an effective nuclear deterrent, its allies, particularly Hizbullah, might feel emboldened and that they have the cover to pursue a more hostile approach to Israel."
Most experts believe Iran is at least three years from actually possessing a nuclear weapon, although some believe it could get there sooner if it focused on plutonium separation rather than uranium enrichment. Another possibility is that it possesses materials and facilities the international community doesn't know about, which could also telescope that prognostication to a shorter point in the distance.
Either way, the time for heading off Iran's nuclearization is fleeting, experts say, which is one reason the issue has resurfaced. On Thursday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is scheduled to take up Iran's case and decide whether to refer it to the Security Council - one reason Bush last week returned his attention to Iran and what he has called the problem of the world's worst regimes possessing the world's deadliest weapons.
Few observers expect the IAEA to send the Iran case to the Security Council at this point, with several European countries having just concluded an agreement with Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programs while international assistance is negotiated.
On the heels of that agreement last week, Iran announced Monday it had frozen its uranium enrichment program. But the seeds of a breakdown appeared already sown in the deal, with Iran saying the freeze would be "brief" and tied to the Europeans' making good on promises of economic assistance, while the Europeans insisted on a "sustained" freeze before other elements of the deal would set in.
In any event, the Bush administration remains deeply skeptical of the prospects for the European plan to derail Iran's nuclear ambitions. One reason is that over recent years Iran's nuclear program has become tightly bound with national pride, thus making it all the more difficult for a regime - particularly one whose popularity is already on the wane - to give it up.
"It doesn't matter what faction it is, from the radical religious conservatives to the left, there's a consensus that Iran has a right to pursue the nuclear fuel cycle, and that indeed it has a right to develop nuclear weapons if it chooses," says Mr. Brumberg. "It's something that unites the country, so in a time of deepening divisions it's not something that anyone wants to renounce."
Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, says the Iranians are not yet on a par with Pakistanis: "In Karachi you see clocks in the form of a nuclear warhead." But he says polls show as many as 80 percent of Iranians supporting the country's nuclear ambitions, underscoring how difficult securing an agreement from Iran may be.
Still, experts like Mr. Takeyh say it is the "exceptionalism" of the bomb landing in the hands of such an "unpredictable, unstable, and aggressive regime" that makes Iran "a nearly existential threat."
Some experts hold out the hope that Iran, if it became a nuclear power, could yet evolve in somewhat the same way India has- from a one-time international agitator to a nuclear power taking its position seriously and demonstrating stronger interests in regional stability.
That Iran has not caused all the trouble in next-door Iraq that it is assumed it could have is one factor cited in support of Iran's potential for evolving into a responsible actor. Maybe Iran would not use its nuclear status to try to drive up oil prices, or to husband a more radical Palestinian future, some observers suggest.
But even that would not address the risks posed by nuclear proliferation in perhaps the world's least stable region. As nonproliferation expert Sokolski says, the world is opening a can of worms if it allows countries the right, as Iran is claiming, to enrich uranium while claiming its ambitions are peaceful. The message to other nuclear wannabes would be clear.
The problem of everyone "becoming nuclear ready," Sokolski says, is that "maybe it's not quite the bomb, but it's within a screwdriver turn of it."
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Iran suspends uranium enrichment and opens way to fresh nuclear deal with EU
independent.co.uk
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
23 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=585774
A claim by Iran that it has suspended uranium enrichment appears to open a three-month window for a compromise over what it insists is its peaceful atomic energy programme. But the US remains convinced that Tehran remains determined to develop nuclear weapons.
The suspension was announced yesterday by Iranian state radio, as what it called a "confidence-building" move, before negotiations resume on a long-term deal between Iran and the European Union.
"I think pretty much everything has been stopped," Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said. IAEA inspectors will verify the shut-down so that it can be formally ratified by an IAEA board meeting in Vienna on Thursday.
What happens thereafter largely depends on the EU and the as yet unspecified economic and political co-operation deal it has promised Tehran, which is also expected to offer EU help with civil nuclear technology.
Kamal Kharrazi, the Foreign Minister, said: "After three months we will evaluate," stressing that the goal was an agreement with the EU "that convinces them we are not planning a bomb, but that will permit Iran to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes". Hard-liners have accused the government of sacrificing the country's interests. Washington, however, is convinced that the entire exercise is being used by Iran as a smokescreen. Only reluctantly has the US dropped its demand for Iran to be brought before the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
At theAsia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Chile, President George Bush left no doubt that preventing nuclear proliferation was his top foreign policy for the second term, taking direct aim at North Korea and Iran. US suspicions have been given extra edge by recent events - ranging from claims that the Iranian regime was operating a secret enrichment facility in Tehran, to the admission that it had already produced hexafluoride gas used in the enrichment process.
Mr Kharrazi has flatly denied that Iran had bought weapons-grade uranium abroad - a claim advanced by an opposition exile group - or that it was developing a missile to carry a nuclear warhead, as alleged last week by General Colin Powell, the outgoing Secretary of State.
The US information appears to be based on a single uncorroborated source, but General Powell is not backing down. "I stick by it," he said yesterday.
The EU deal was reached after talks in Paris between officials from Britain, France, Germany and Iran.
Tehran insists it is entitled to pursue peaceful atomic energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory.
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Iran sticks by belief that nuclear arms unIslamic: minister
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Nov 23, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041123191005.hroohbn9.html
Iranian deputy foreign minister Gholamali Khoshrou denied Tuesday that his country's top leaders were at odds over whether nuclear weapons were un-Islamic, insisting that it will "never" make the bomb.
Addressing the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Khoshrou also said that the Islamic republic was wholly committed to a suspension of its uranium enrichment drive despite US "propaganda" to the contrary.
Asked by lawmakers to clarify whether former president and top regime cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani believed that Islam permitted Iran to make atomic weapons as a deterrent to Israel, the minister said there was no basis to this.
"Those quotes are out of context. This is not the position of Iran," Khoshrou said.
"The highest authority in Iran, Ayatollah (Ali) Khamenei, has reiterated on several occasions his religious verdict on the prohibition of producing, stockpiling and using nuclear weapons," he said.
"We have never been after the atomic bomb. We don't believe in that, in accordance with our religious belief. It has never been an option for Iran and never will it be."
Iran said Monday it was implementing a hard-fought deal with the European Union to suspend uranium enrichment in return for the promise of enhanced trade and political ties.
The United States accuses Iran of using a civilian atomic energy programme to secretly develop nuclear weapons, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran.
At the weekend during a visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated accusations that Iran is seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.
"We are not terrified by American propaganda that Iran is doing this or that," Khoshrou said.
"But everyone knows that Israel has nuclear capability. Israel's missiles would hurt anybody in the region. No concern is raised about that," he added.
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Bush wants proof from Iran
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By James Lakely
November 23, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041122-115430-7285r.htm
CARTAGENA, Colombia - President Bush yesterday called for independent verification of Iran's claim that it has stopped enriching uranium that could be used in the development of a nuclear weapon.
"Well, let's say, I hope it's true," Mr. Bush said in a joint press conference with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. "And I think the definition of truth is the willingness for the Iranian regime to allow for verification.
"You know, they have said some things in the past," he added warily. "And it's very important for them to verify and earn the trust of those of us who are worried about them developing a nuclear weapon."
The State Department was equally skeptical.
"This is a situation we've been in before, where Iran has said that it would suspend, and then subsequently went on to renege on those commitments," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. "So obviously, our interest is seeing not what they say, but what they actually do."
The United States will reserve judgment until the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) verifies Iran's claim, which comes in the wake of an agreement that Tehran reached earlier this month with Germany, France and Britain. The IAEA has a team of inspectors in Iran.
"Nations around the world understand the dangers of the Iranian government having a nuclear weapon," Mr. Bush said. "And so it looks like there is some progress.
"But to determine whether or not the progress is real, there must be verification," he added. "And we look forward to seeing that verification."
Iran's announcement yesterday that it had suspended enrichment of uranium was widely viewed as an attempt to avoid being referred to the U.N. Security Council by the IAEA, the world body's nuclear watchdog. Still, the claim was taken at face value by IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei.
"I think pretty much everything has come to a halt right now, so we are just trying to make sure that everything has been stopped," Mr. ElBaradei told reporters. "Hopefully by Thursday, I should be able to report that we've verified the suspension."
If the suspension turns out to be bogus, Western condemnation would be swift.
"If there is a failure by Iran to meet its obligations, then Britain, and also Germany and France, reserve our collective right to refer the matter to the Security Council," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Also at yesterday's press conference, Mr. Bush said he would ask Congress to continue sending billions in U.S. aid to help Colombia fight the illegal drug trade through a program called Plan Colombia.
"Since the year 2000, when we began Plan Colombia, the United States has provided more than $3 billion in vital aid," he said. "Plan Colombia enjoys wide bipartisan support in my country, and next year, I will ask our Congress to renew its support so that this courageous nation can win its war against narcoterrorists."
Mr. Bush added the stop in Colombia at the suggestion of Mr. Uribe, one of the few conservative leaders in a largely anti-Bush Latin America and a man who was among the first foreign leaders to send his congratulations on the president's re-election.
•Bill Sammon in Washington contributed to this report.
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The west's truce with Iran buys time for both sides, but spectre of proliferation remains Non-aligned countries still seek the bomb
The Guardian
Ian Traynor
November 23, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1357382,00.html
Iran's decision to freeze the enrichment of uranium, implemented yesterday under intense international pressure, appears to have stalled for the time being the mullahs' moves towards obtaining the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb.
The truce in the 18-month dispute between Iran and the west buys time for both sides -for Iran to perfect its techniques in readiness for switching the machines back on should its pact with the EU break down, and for the nuclear inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and western governments to keep probing the Iranian operations and learn more about a 20-year-old programme.
The threat of nuclear weapons spreading to hostile regimes is one of the most formidable challenges confronting President George Bush as he enters his second and final term. While Mr Bush went to war in Iraq to destroy, among other aims, a nuclear weapons programme that had already been destroyed, more advanced nuclear programmes have been making headway elsewhere.
From the dusty Iranian towns of Isfahan and Natanz to the poorly guarded stockpiles of plutonium and uranium scattered across Russia, from the closed complexes in North Korea to the military laboratories outside Islamabad which a rogue Pakistani engineer turned into the offices of the world's first private nuclear shopping mall, the risks and threats posed by nuclear proliferation are now palpable.
"Nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism represent the single most important threat to US and global security," Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, said in a speech this month at Stanford University in California. Apart from the problem of securing Russia's colossal nuclear stockpiles - 600 tons of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium held in warehouses, more than three quarters of it not properly secured, according to the US Department of Energy - three other nuclear crises erupted on Mr Bush's watch.
These are: North Korea's decision last year to abrogate the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), kick out the IAEA inspectors and pursue the bomb; 18 years of secret Iranian nuclear programmes uncovered only last year; the revelations this year that the disgraced Pakistani engineer, Abdul Qadir Khan, was running a private network peddling nuclear technologyand warhead designs for cash to at least three customers, Libya, Iran, and North Korea.
But Colonel Muammar Gadafy was persuaded to renounce his nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programmes - a rare event. The sole precedent is South Africa where democracy in the early 1990s brought surrender of the apartheid regime's nuclear weapons programme.
There are eight nuclear powers - the UN security council's Big Five - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus India, Pakistan, and Israel. The last three have not signed the NPT, the fundamental international instrument regulating nuclear weapons. More than 30 years old, the NPT is widely regarded as having surpassed expectations in containing the spread of the bomb.
"Thirty years ago people thought there would be 30 [nuclear] weapons states by now. There are eight," said John Ritch, a former Clinton administration nuclear control official who now heads the World Nuclear Association. "The NPT has been an enormous success."
But given globalisation and modern information and technology flows, the NPT is fraying at the edges. It comes up for review next year amid tremendous international infighting behind the scenes. North Korea's abrupt abrogation of the treaty last year with impunity exposed one of the treaty's weaknesses and set a troubling precedent.
Experts and diplomats fear that countries as diverse as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Algeria or Nigeria could launch weapons programmes if proliferation is allowed to flourish. In the attempt to get to grips with the problem, the Bush administration is relying on tougher international policing and powers of interdiction as well as seeking to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear bombs - a fissile materials cutoff treaty (FMCT) that would be internationally binding.
President Bush's special envoy on nuclear non-proliferation, Jackie Sanders, told a UN meeting last month that agreement on the moratorium, however, was getting bogged down in arguments about verification.
Many countries, including Iran, are against the US proposals and suspect Washington is seeking to curb their rights, enshrined in the NPT, to manufacture their own nuclear fuel and enrich their own uranium. Nuclear fuel for power generation can be made into bomb-grade material in months.
Many of the big non-aligned countries, such as South Africa, Malaysia and Brazil, discreetly support the Iranians in their nuclear dispute with the west because they fear that they will be next in line if Iran is forced to abandon uranium enrichment, legal under international law.
The governments of Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico and Egypt - the so-called New Agenda Coalition - last month took the US to task, arguing that Washington's campaign to clamp down on the spread of nuclear weapons would be counter-productive unless the nuclear powers themselves moved decisively towards disarmament.
Dr ElBaradei has appointed a committee of experts to come up with other proposals. They are to report next spring. He has been campaigning in recent months for much tighter and more formal controls. He is also seeking to internationalise the supply of nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes by proposing the fuel be stored in a depository under multilateral control. The fuel would then be useless for weapons purposes.
But the Bush administration appears allergic to the notion of "multilateral" and the established weapons states would balk at having their nuclear supplies controlled by a UN-style body. "We have come to a fork in the road," said Dr ElBaradei this month. "Either there must be a demonstrated commitment to move towards nuclear disarmament, or we should resign ourselves to the fact that other countries will pursue a more dangerous parity through proliferation."
There are other, relatively new risks - nuclear terrorism, dirty bombs or conventional explosive laced with radioactive materials, nuclear theft and nuclear trafficking.
In the past decade there have been more than 600 confirmed incidents of trafficking in radioactive materials, with the annual figures continuing to rise. Most entail low-level radioactive devices, but experts and officials believe it is merely a matter of time until conventional terrorist explosives hit a nuclear facility or a dirty bomb causes panic in a major western city.
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U.N. Official Says Iranians Seem to Curb Atom Activity
November 23, 2004
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/middleeast/23iran.html?pagewanted=all
PARIS, Nov. 22 - Iran appears to have frozen major nuclear activities in an effort to persuade the world that it does not intend to build nuclear bombs, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said Monday.
"I think pretty much everything has come to a halt right now, so we are just trying to make sure that everything has been stopped," Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Vienna.
He added that operations at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility in Iran had now ended, and that the agency was in the process of applying seals to shut down operations at the country's facilities.
Dr. ElBaradei also said the atomic energy agency "hopefully" would be able to verify that Iran was honoring its commitments to freeze its uranium enrichment activities by the time the agency's 35-nation governing board begins meetings with Iran in Vienna on Thursday about how to deal with the nuclear program.
If Iran has indeed suspended those activities, it may make it harder for the United States to win a tough United Nations resolution that would perhaps entail an automatic referral of Iran to the Security Council for censure or even sanctions.
A draft resolution circulating in Vienna for consideration by the governing board calls only for Iran to be reported immediately to the International Atomic Energy Agency if it does not fully carry out the suspension or if it prevents the agency from monitoring its activities.
But Dr. ElBaradei also disclosed Monday that Iran had recently produced two tons of uranium hexafluoride, a gas whose production is a crucial step in making fuel for atom bombs and civilian nuclear reactors.
The agency uncovered evidence last week that Iran had mastered the technique of making the gas and apparently had sped up production at its vast uranium conversion facility in Isfahan. But Dr. ElBaradei's disclosure was the first public confirmation that it had produced large quantities of the gas.
The production of uranium hexafluoride does not violate an agreement Iran reached Nov. 15 with France, Germany, Britain and the European Union to suspend its uranium enrichment activities in exchange for potential rewards. That is because the deadline Iran set for carrying out the deal, known as the Paris Agreement because it was negotiated here, came into effect only on Monday.
But the disclosure was unsettling. The Bush administration, which has threatened to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible censure or sanctions because of its nuclear program, seized on it as an indication that Iran could not be trusted.
At a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain said the Iran issue might still be referred to the Security Council for possible punitive action if Tehran reneged on the deal. "If there is a failure by Iran to meet its obligations, then Britain, and also Germany and France reserve our collective right to refer the matter to the Security Council," Mr. Straw said.
Other European officials suggested that Iran, which was reluctant to agree to the freeze on activities it insists are for peaceful purposes, was determined to prove to the world its technological mastery. Despite claims last week by Iranian leaders, including President Mohammad Khatami, that the agreement was a "great success," it has been harshly criticized at home by hard-line members of Parliament and in newspaper editorials as a sign of Iranian capitulation to the West.
Hussein Mousavian, the chief Iranian negotiator in the Paris talks, tried to quell the criticism by saying last week that the agreement was approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader and most powerful official.
In Tehran on Monday, there was only a brief report on state-run radio and television announcing that Iran had suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities. "To build confidence, and in line with implementing the Paris Agreement, Iran suspended uranium enrichment," the radio report said.
After the meetings this week, the Europeans are to begin negotiations spelled out in the agreement for possible incentives to Iran if it continues to suspend its enrichment activities.
Dr. ElBaradei was also asked Monday about accusations last week by an Iranian opposition group that Iran was running a secret uranium enrichment program at a Defense Ministry site in the Lavizan district of Tehran. The accusations were made by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political front of the People's Mujahedeen, an opposition group labeled as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Dr. ElBaradei made no effort to hide his impatience with such reports. "We follow every credible source of information," he said. "There's a big difference between doing robust verification and harassing a country."
Bringing U.S. and Iran Together By THE NEW YORK TIMES
SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt, Nov. 22 - In a bit of diplomatic gamesmanship apparently aimed at opening a dinner-table dialogue between the United States and Iran, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi of Iran were seated next to each other Monday night at the opening dinner of an international conference here.
But the seating, arranged by the Egyptian hosts, did not appear to break much ice. According to a senior State Department official, the two engaged in "polite dinner conversation" only, with no indication of discussion of differences over Iraq and Iran's nuclear program.
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Iran Says It Has Halted Uranium Enrichment
November 23, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Agency-Iran.html
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran said Monday it has frozen all uranium enrichment programs, weakening a U.S. effort to refer Tehran's suspect nuclear activities to the U.N. Security Council. President Bush said he hoped the statement is true but ``there must be verification.''
Iran's claim was welcomed by Europe and cautiously endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency. But even if verified by the IAEA, such a freeze falls short of European and U.S. hopes of an Iranian commitment to scrap enrichment ambitions.
Iran has said suspension will be only temporary and insists that it has the ultimate right to enrich uranium. It dismisses U.S. assertions that it wants to use the technology to make weapons, saying it is interested only in generating nuclear power.
And Tehran's announcement of a start to suspension came only after it had already converted a few tons of raw uranium into the gas used as feedstock for enrichment. While not prohibited from doing so until Monday -- when the freeze took effect -- conversion continued until shortly before the deadline, raising doubts about Iran's interest in dispelling international concerns.
``Iran suspended uranium enrichment (and related activities) as of today,'' Iranian state radio said Monday. In Vienna, home to the IAEA, agency head Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters: ``I think pretty much everything has come to a halt.''
Bush said Iran must ``earn the trust of those of us who are worried about them developing a nuclear weapon.''
``Let's say I hope it's true,'' Bush said at a news conference in Cartegena, Colombia. But, he added, ``I think the definition of truth is the willingness of the Iranian regime to allow for verification.''
ElBaradei said he expected to have a definitive ruling by Thursday on whether Iran had honored its pledge to stop all activities covered by the freeze, among them producing the uranium hexafluoride gas that can be enriched either to low-grade nuclear fuel or high-level weapons grade uranium used for the core of warheads.
Britain -- a key negotiator of the Nov. 7 deal that promises Iran technical and political support from the European Union in exchange for the suspension -- cautiously welcomed the move while making clear it would watch closely for its implementation.
``Clearly the important thing is that on the one hand Iran is showing signs of compliance,'' said the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair. ``But equally the important thing is that it does so.''
Still, the suspension -- if verified by IAEA inspectors -- will take the wind out of a U.S. push to have Iran referred to the Security Council, a goal the Americans have pursued since the start more than a year ago of an agency probe into suspect Iranian dual-use nuclear activities.
The suspension was clearly timed to the start Thursday of a 35-nation IAEA board meeting and met a key demand of the last board meeting in September. It thus deprived the Americans of arguing that Tehran was defying the U.N. agency.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned that if Iran reneges on the deal, the European Union ``reserves the right'' to seek U.N. sanctions against the country.
Still, that option seemed far away Monday, judging from an EU draft resolution on Iran to be presented to the board.
The confidential draft -- as excerpted to The Associated Press by a senior EU diplomat -- did not go beyond requesting that ElBaradei monitor the implementation of the suspension and ``report immediately to the board'' if the freeze is not implemented.
The draft would likely undergo modifications, he said. The Americans in particular would be looking to toughen up the language, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Another senior EU diplomat, however, said the Europeans had little wiggle room because language that is too direct could alienate the Iranians and lead them to resume enrichment.
Analysts said the Americans would have to settle for less than referral.
``This will virtually undermine U.S. efforts to move the Iran nuclear file from the IAEA board to the Security Council,'' said Shannon Kile, who follows nuclear issues for Sweden's Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
While not prohibited from enrichment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran has been under intense pressure to agree to at least a freeze -- if not to scrap its program -- as a way of reducing international suspicions.
ElBaradei, the U.N. agency head, said Monday he believed the Iranians processed about two tons of raw uranium into the gas in the period leading up to Monday's suspension deadline.
A diplomat with nuclear expertise said that amount would be about a quarter of the quantity needed to produce the more than 50 pounds of weapons-grade uranium for one small nuclear weapon.
Associated Press writers Matt Moore in Stockholm and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran contributed to this report.
On the Net:
IAEA: http://www.iaea.org
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Iran Rules Out Complete Nuclear Dismantling
November 23, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - Iran will never be prepared to dismantle its nuclear program entirely but remains committed to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), its chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday.
The United States, which branded Iran as part of an ``axis of evil'' along with North Korea and pre-war Iraq, accuses Iran of using its nuclear power program as a front to build a bomb. Tehran rejects the claim.
``Definitely, Iran will never be prepared for dismantling. This is out of the question and out of negotiation,'' Hossein Mousavian told a news conference in Beijing.
``Americans also have no right to raise something like this,'' he said, adding that Iran had never used its nuclear power program for weapons production.
On Monday, Iran said it had kept a promise it made to the European Union last week by freezing its entire uranium enrichment program and the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, gave a cautious confirmation.
Iran made a similar promise in October 2003 but never fully suspended its enrichment program.
France, Britain and Germany, which spearheaded an EU offer of incentives if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment program, circulated a draft resolution that diplomats at the United Nations said was unacceptable to both Washington and Tehran.
Washington sees it as too weak and wants to include an ``automatic trigger'' which makes it clear that resuming any activities related to enrichment -- a process of purifying uranium to fuel power plants or make weapons -- would spark a referral to the U.N. Security Council and possibly sanctions.
The draft is to be submitted to the board of governors of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, in Vienna on Thursday, where Mousavian was headed from Beijing.
If the United States pushed for the issue to be addressed in the U.N. Security Council, Washington would find itself alone, Mousavian said.
``I think Americans, they see not much room to oppose the present process of cooperation between Iran and the EU,'' he said at the end of a visit to the Chinese capital.
``And even if this time they raise the urgency of referral of the case to the United Nations Security Council I believe again they would be isolated,'' he said.
Iran's suspension of activities that could be used to make a nuclear weapon was a gesture of goodwill, Mousavian said, and Iran was serious about its commitment to use its nuclear programs for peaceful purposes.
``Iran would be prepared for full cooperation, comprehensive cooperation in the framework of NPT safeguards and protocols, active, proactive cooperation with IAEA, transparency as much as protocol and safeguards and the NPT requests,'' he said.
Asked if a formula such as the six-party talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis could be applied to Iran, Mousavian said the two cases were very different.
``I believe we have a very different situation. North Korea possesses nuclear bombs. Everybody knows that Iran not only does not possess any nuclear bombs, Iranian nuclear activities have never had diversion also,'' he said.
North Korea had withdrawn from the NPT, while Iran was committed to it, he said.
-------- israel
Israel's Dimona nuclear plant is safe: Sharon
JERUSALEM (AFP)
Nov 23, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041123112226.ped56s2r.html
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has insisted that the country's controversial Dimona nuclear reactor, which has been operating for the past 40 years, is safe, media reports said on Tuesday.
"The Dimona reactor is relatively small and safe", Sharon told MPs on Monday during a closed door session of parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee.
Sharon also ruled out the possibility of foreign experts coming to carry out independent safety checks on the reactor which was built with French aid at the begining of the 1950s.
"Israel possesses the means of assuring the maintenance and of carrying out its own inspections. Foreign assistance is not necessary," he added.
There have been a number of calls for the closure of the plant in the southern Negev desert, with campaigners arguing that the life span of such reactors is 40 years.
Israel has never publicly acknowledged that it maintains a nuclear arsenal but foreign experts say it has used its reactor at Dimona to produce between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads.
Israel is not a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treatyand, to the anger of its Arab neighbours, refuses to submit its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency
-------- japan
Japan edges closer to N Korea sanctions
Asia Times
By J Sean Curtin
Nov 23, 2004
http://atimes.com/atimes/Japan/FK23Dh01.html
Intense media coverage of the North Korean abduction issue has generated unprecedented levels of public anger in Japan and is threatening to derail Tokyo's cautious approach toward Pyongyang. Momentum is rapidly building for the withholding of food aid and the imposition of economic sanctions on the Stalinist state. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is resolutely trying to pursue a pragmatic approach with his unpredictable neighbor, but calls for tougher action are becoming so loud they are getting hard to ignore. Nuclear-nascent North Korea has warned that it would treat any form of sanctions as a declaration of war.
Despite the immense diplomatic risks and potential dangers, signs are emerging that Tokyo is being inexorably pushed toward shifting its policy. Both countries now find themselves caught in a dilemma, whatever course either of them takes, bilateral relations seem destined to deteriorate.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, North Korean agents abducted an undetermined number of Japanese nationals; Tokyo currently officially recognizes 15 victims, and most of their fates have yet to be determined, to Tokyo's satisfaction. They are believed to have been kidnapped in order to teach Pyongyang agents Japanese language, idioms and customs.
The fundamental problem is that the Japanese public does not believe Pyongyang's accounts about the missing citizens. In fact, the more snippets of information North Korea provides, the less Pyongyang is believed, and the more difficult it becomes for Tokyo to maintain a moderate line.
Early this year Japanese lawmakers approved a bill enabling the government to impose economic sanctions on any country considered a threat to Japan's security, meaning North Korea. The bill amends the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law and would allow Tokyo to halt trade, block cash remittances to North Korea and even halt ferry service.
Many ordinary Japanese, who usually have little interest in foreign affairs, are passionate about the abduction issue and fervently believe the time has come to initiate such action. It is difficult to describe the sheer strength of public feeling on this issue, which cuts across all ages.
Worker Takahiro Kitamura expresses a very widely held view. He told Asia Times Online, "We have repeatedly asked them to give us the facts, but all they are giving us are poor-quality lies. They are adding to the pain of the abductee families and insulting the Japanese people. We have simply had enough of this, we just cannot trust anything they say. Put sanctions on them. Maybe then they will start telling the truth."
Yuko Usui, a young nurse, is typical of many people who have been deeply moved by the plight of the abductee families. She says, "All they want is to know what happened to their loved ones. They have suffered so terribly, I feel like crying with them and sometimes I do. All they want is the truth and that is the only thing North Korea will not give them."
Noriko Kurihara, a young businesswoman, makes another commonly heard observation. "They are giving us the same kind of crazy propaganda they feed their own people and expect us to believe it," she says. "Do they think Japanese people are stupid? We have scientists who can easily detect their faked evidence, so why do they keep producing it? " She adds, "Maybe in a country like that there is no difference between fact and fiction."
The press and leading lawmakers also articulate this public sentiment. In a recent editorial, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's most popular daily newspaper, wrote, "North Korea's explanations are full of contradictions, and according to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun, more than 80% of voters do not believe that Pyongyang conducted a serious investigation into the fate of the Japanese abductees ... Japan also must increase pressure on North Korea by being ready to impose economic sanctions on the country whenever it gives us unconvincing explanations."
To successfully resolve the abduction issue, the habitually secretive state must provide comprehensive and verifiable information on the fates of the missing Japanese citizens who it admits to abducting during the 1970s and 80s.
Pyongyang says it has repatriated the five surviving abductees and that the remainder are dead. However, the scant information it has so far provided to substantiate its claims has frequently proven to be contradictory, untrustworthy or simply fabricated.
The latest example of Pyongyang's duplicity is the photographs it recently presented to Tokyo of the purportedly deceased abductee Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped in 1977 at the age of 13. It is now believed that one of the three photos, which it is claimed were taken of the young woman while she endured captivity, may be a composite, doctored to hide a scene or a person in the original picture. This is the latest in a whole series of highly damaging revelations and has only entrenched the public's extremely deep mistrust of anything North Korea says and intensified demands for economic sanctions.
The abductees' families, especially Shigeru and Sakie Yokota, the parents of missing Megumi Yokota, have also been phenomenally effective in exposing the numerous flaws in Pyongyang's evidence, completely demolishing its already rock-bottom credibility. The Yokotas are currently appearing at venues up and down the country demanding that sanctions be imposed. After the visit of a Japanese delegation, Pyongyang sent back what it said were the ashes of Megumi and another person for DNA analysis.
Japan appears to have reached the stage where virtually nobody believes anything Pyongyang says. Influential political figures such as Shinzo Abe and Takeo Hiranuma, both leading candidates to succeed Koizumi, are also vigorously calling for sanctions. The major opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has also adopted an aggressive stance, significantly adding to the gathering momentum for imposing sanctions.
Senior diplomats are urging caution, warning that at this stage sanctions or the withholding of a scheduled 250,000 tons of humanitarian food aid would exacerbate the situation, extinguish any hope of finding out what happened to the missing abductees, jeopardize the six-party talks on halting North Korea's nuclear program and trigger a potential catastrophe in which tens of thousands of North Koreans might starve to death, destabilizing the region and prompting the unpredictable regime to take dangerous actions.
A Japanese diplomat, who did not wish to be named, told Asia Times Online, "Our experience in dealing with this awkward regime indicates that the imposition of even limited sanctions at this juncture would most probably be very counterproductive and hinder both our short-term and long-term objectives and make it harder to conduct any productive negotiations in the future."
While diplomatic logic dictates that economic sanctions would not be effective or advisable, public opinion is threatening to overturn this policy. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Koizumi to maintain his steady pragmatic course. In the last few days, the situation has reached an almost critical point, and it is becoming difficult to predict exactly what will happen next.
At the weekend's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit in Chile, Koizumi raised the abduction issue, calling for help in resolving it: "We want to continue to request support from APEC on this matter." He also said Tokyo would continue to urge North Korea to halt its nuclear development program.
The prime minister appears reluctant to abandon his carefully calculated approach. However, unless North Korea suddenly becomes more forthcoming or the media tones down its strident anti-Pyongyang rhetoric, Koizumi may have little alternative than to adopt much tougher tactics.
A week ago, sanctions seemed highly improbable, now they seem like a real possibility. This is a development that is worrying for the leadership in both countries, and alarmingly, neither is fully in charge of the forces driving the debate.
J Sean Curtin is a GLOCOM fellow at the Tokyo-based Japanese Institute of Global Communications.
-----
Japan Nuclear Plant Reaches Safety Pact to Start Uranium Tests
By Kyodo News International
November 23, 2004
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=436
AOMORI, Japan - The operator of the new Rokkasho nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori Prefecture concluded a safety agreement with the local and prefectural governments on Monday and is expected to begin experiments using uranium possibly by year-end, officials of the local governments said.
The agreement was reached after a government panel reviewing Japan's long-term nuclear energy plan said in a recent report that Japan will stick to the current policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rather than burying it, effectively giving the green light for the plan to begin operations at the Rokkasho plant.
The agreement was reached among the Aomori prefectural government, the Rokkasho village government and Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.
In October, debate on the current policy of reprocessing spent fuel was heated by an estimate by a subcommittee of the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan that reprocessing is 1.5 times to 1.6 times more expensive than burial disposal.
The Rokkasho plant is scheduled to begin full-fledged operations in July 2006 and has begun accepting spent nuclear fuel from power plants for storage.
-------- terrorism
CIA Says Iran, Qaeda Pursued Nuclear Weapons
November 23, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-wmd.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran ``vigorously'' pursued programs to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons during the latter part of 2003 and was working to improve delivery systems, a CIA report said on Tuesday.
Al Qaeda was also engaged in rudimentary nuclear research, the CIA said, and the network's stated willingness to launch an unconventional attack was a major concern.
The unclassified semi-annual report to Congress on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction from July 1 through Dec. 31, 2003, was posted on the intelligence agency's Web site www.cia.gov.
``Iran's nuclear program received significant assistance in the past from the proliferation network headed by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan,'' the CIA report said.
Khan's network provided Iran with designs for Pakistan's older centrifuges and for more advanced and efficient models, and components, the report said.
Iran was trying to improve delivery systems and sought foreign materials, training and equipment from Russia, China, North Korea, and Europe, it said.
Last week Iran denied allegations by an exiled opposition group that it obtained weapons-grade uranium and a nuclear bomb design from Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb.
The United States believes Iran has been pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program and has tried to convince the international community of those concerns.
TERRORISM THREAT HIGH
``One of our highest concerns is al Qaeda's stated readiness to attempt unconventional attacks against us,'' the report said. Osama bin Laden and other leaders have said it was al Qaeda's religious duty to acquire nuclear weapons, the CIA said.
Documents recovered in Afghanistan showed that al Qaeda ``was engaged in rudimentary nuclear research, although the extent of its indigenous program is unclear,'' it said.
Pakistani nuclear engineer Bashir al-Din Mahmood, who reportedly met with bin Laden, ``may have provided some assistance to al Qaeda's program,'' the report said.
``In addition, we are alert to the very real possibility that al Qaeda or other terrorist groups might also try to launch conventional attacks against the chemical or nuclear industrial infrastructure of the United States to cause panic and economic disruption,'' the CIA report said.
Several groups associated with al Qaeda planned attacks in Europe with easily produced chemicals and toxins best suited to assassination and small-scale scenarios, the CIA said.
Documents recovered in Afghanistan show al Qaeda has crude procedures for making mustard agent, sarin, and VX nerve agent, and had conducted research on biological agents. ``We believe al Qaeda's BW (biological warfare) program is primarily focused on anthrax for mass casualty attacks,'' the report said.
The CIA report also said that information from 2003 detailed the construction of a ``terrorist cyanide-based chemical weapon'' that could be made with easily available items and required little training to assemble and deploy.
``Such a device could produce a lethal concentration of poisonous gases in an enclosed area,'' the CIA said.
The proliferation behavior of Chinese companies remained of ``great concern'' but China had taken some positive steps, the report said. In September 2003, China stopped a shipment of chemicals at the China-North Korea border that could have been used in North Korea's nuclear program, the report said.
North Korea had approached Western European entities for assistance with its uranium enrichment program, and ``a shipment of aluminum tubing -- enough for 4,000 centrifuge tubes -- was halted by German authorities,'' the report said.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Congress jettisons nuclear bomb funds
President touted bunker buster as vital to U.S. security
San Francisco Chronicle
James Sterngold
November 23, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/23/MNGSPA04NG1.DTL
Congress, in a surprising blow to the Bush administration's nuclear weapons ambitions, has eliminated funding for two major bomb research programs, including a so-called bunker buster that the president had said was essential to the country's security.
Relatively small amounts of money are involved -- tens of millions of dollars -- and the new weapons-research programs could be revived in later years. But the cuts agreed to by the House and the Senate, in which influential Republicans joined with Democratic opponents of the programs, amounted to a rejection of a major part of Bush's nuclear defense strategy.
"This has always been a hard sell," said David Smith, the chief operating officer of the National Institute for Public Policy, a conservative-leaning think tank that formulated what became the president's basic weapons strategy in 2000 and that placed many of its members in the administration. "The problem is the public -- and the Congress reflects this -- just doesn't understand the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War world.
"We just don't seem to be able to turn the corner even on researching what's doable with new kinds of weapons. Bumper stickers aren't going to accomplish some of the missions this country is going to face."
Opponents of the new programs were ecstatic.
"This responsible decision demonstrates the growing bipartisan concern and distrust of the Bush administration's irresponsible and risky nuclear policy," Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, said in a statement after the appropriations bill was passed last weekend.
"The administration is using the war on terrorism as a flimsy excuse to find new uses for existing nuclear weapons and new nuclear weapons -- weapons that the Pentagon hasn't even officially asked for."
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based group that advocates arms reductions, called the vote "a surprising and welcome rebuke of the administration's nuclear programs. It shows that not only are Democrats convinced, but key Republicans are convinced we don't need new nuclear weapons capabilities."
Overall nuclear weapons-related spending, most of which will be used to maintain the current stockpile of more than 10,000 warheads, will rise in fiscal 2005 to slightly more than $6.52 billion, up nearly $300 million from fiscal 2004.
But under the appropriations bill passed Saturday, funding for research into what is called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator -- a bomb that would burrow deep into the earth and destroy buried targets, such as enemy bunkers - - was completely eliminated. The White House had sought $27.6 million, up from $7.5 million last year.
In addition, $9 million that Bush had requested for research into new kinds of advanced weapons concepts was denied. Instead, the same amount of money was placed into a program to ensure the reliability of existing warheads.
And Congress slashed the White House's request for funding of design work on a new factory for producing plutonium "pits," the radioactive cores of warheads, from a requested $30 million to $7 million. In addition, Congress insisted that none of the money could be used for work on choosing the site of the proposed plant, to be called the Modern Pit Facility.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency that oversees the weapons programs, was clearly frustrated, but officials there said it was not clear if the appropriations meant the programs would be shut down completely.
"It means we don't know yet what will happen," said Bryan Wilkes, an agency spokesman. "It's too early to tell. While we are disappointed that Congress did not support some of our programs, we will be looking at what else we can do."
The architect of the rebuke was the Republican chairman of the House's Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, Rep. David Hobson of Ohio.
He reduced the administration's funding requests last year but fought even harder this year. He has explained in interviews that he sees some of the weapons programs as unnecessary and counterproductive at a time when the United States is trying to persuade other countries to shut down nuclear weapons efforts.
"He felt very strongly about this, and he won this particular round. The U.S. has about 10,000 warheads in the stockpile already. To him, that number is enough," said Hobson's press secretary, Sara Perkins.
But total weapons-related spending rose, and some programs received a larger appropriation than the president had requested. These included a new chemistry and metallurgy research center at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a microelectronics research program at the Sandia National Laboratories.
Supporters of the White House's efforts to create a new generation of warheads for the new security threats the country faces were undaunted.
"This will come up again and again and again," Smith said.
How successful such efforts will be remains to be seen. Hobson told the Washington Post that the rejection was "a clear signal from Congress" and that any attempt to revive the funding in next year's budget "would get the same reaction."
E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.
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Funds for Atomic Bomb Research Cut From Spending Bill
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5554-2004Nov22.html
Congress has eliminated the financing of research supported by President Bush into a new generation of nuclear weapons, including investigations into low-yield atomic bombs and an earth-penetrating warhead that could destroy weapons bunkers deep underground.
The Bush administration called in 2002 for exploring new nuclear weapons that could deter a wide range of threats, including possible development of a warhead that could go after hardened, deeply buried targets, or lower-power bombs that could be used to destroy chemical or biological stockpiles without contaminating a wide area.
But research on those programs was dropped from the $388 billion government-wide spending bill adopted Saturday, a rare instance in which the Republican-controlled Congress has gone against the president. The move slowly came to light over the weekend as details of the extensive measure became clear.
Dropping the programs was praised by arms-control advocates and some members of Congress who tried unsuccessfully for several years to kill them. These opponents argued that such research by the United States could trigger a new arms race, and that the existence of lower-yield weapons -- sometimes called "mini-nukes" -- would ultimately increase the likelihood of war.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) described Saturday's result as "a consequential victory for those of us who believe the United States sends the wrong signal to the rest of the world by reopening the nuclear door."
President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget contained $27 million to continue research on modifying two existing warheads for the earth-penetrator, or "bunker-buster," role, and it projected nearly $500 million over the next five years should a weapon be approved.
While Feinstein and other Democrats had failed earlier this year to bar authorization of the program, it was a Republican, Rep. David L. Hobson of Ohio, who lead the successful effort to keep the programs out of the omnibus appropriations bill adopted Saturday. Hobson, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development, oversaw dropping the money from an appropriations bill in June, and House-Senate conferees accepted that action in Saturday's bill.
The Bush administration, Hobson said yesterday, "should read this as a clear signal from Congress" that any attempt to revive the funding in next year's budget "would get the same reaction." He added that he had not heard any threat of a veto and "nobody has come to me and said we can't have this."
The action caught the administration by surprise. A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the nuclear weapons programs and the national nuclear laboratories, said the matter was under study.
"We are disappointed Congress has not followed the administration's request in several areas, and we will assess what we will do down the road," said Bryan Wilkes, the security agency's spokesman. He added that it was too early to talk about what will be in the fiscal 2006 budget that will go to Congress in January.
Also cut from the nuclear program was $7 million for selecting a site for a $4 billion facility that would build what are called plutonium pits, the nuclear triggers for thermonuclear warheads. Arms-control advocates had opposed the facility, arguing that with a sharp 50 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear stockpile, a small facility operating now at Los Alamos National Laboratory could produce enough pits for the U.S. arsenal.
Hobson said he decided the research money should be deleted after visits over the past two years with scientists and managers at the nuclear labs and test sites, and after watching steps being taken by the administration to cut the nuclear stockpile and designate "smart" conventional weapons for tasks once assigned to atomic warheads.
He said that the $9 million Bush request to study ideas for new low-yield weapons had been redirected into studies of "current technologies to make existing warheads more robust and easier to maintain without more testing." Hobson added he had been against developing smaller-yield weapons "that someone might use," and instead wants the nuclear labs to employ modern technology to make "more reliable replacements" for the current warheads.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), whose attempt to cut the new nuclear weapons program authorization in past years had failed, described what had occurred as a reversal of "the Bush administration's dangerous disregard for nuclear nonproliferation."
She noted the "growing bipartisan concern and distrust" of the administration's nuclear policies and commended Hobson "for recognizing the need to halt spending for nuclear 'bunker busters' and an arsenal of new nuclear weapons."
Hobson also received praise from Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, who said the Ohio legislator "has shown enormous courage to break ranks with the White House and apply common sense on its excessive and extreme nuclear proposals."
Kimball warned the administration to "carefully consider whether it will try to revive its controversial nuclear weapons research programs."
--------
Nuclear Weapons Money Is Cut From Spending Bill
November 23, 2004
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/politics/23nuke.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 - The giant spending bill that Congress passed on Saturday eliminated money for developing new nuclear weapons, including one that would be used to destroy underground bunkers. It also deeply cut the Bush administration's request for money for a new factory to make the triggers for nuclear bombs.
One of the projects eliminated was the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, widely known as the bunker buster; the administration had wanted $27.6 million for the program.
If a bomb penetrates into the earth by a few feet before detonating, much of its energy is transferred into the soil, forming a shock wave that can destroy underground structures, experts say. For years, military planners have discussed a need for such a weapon, which could wipe out underground factories or command centers. But critics argued that developing such weapons would push the United States closer to stepping across the nuclear threshold for the first time since 1945, that intelligence was not good enough to assure that the Pentagon would know where to use the weapons, and that even if such weapons were used, they might not work.
Another program that was cut back was the advanced concepts initiative, which was also apparently for new weapons, although details were not made public. It was also supposed to provide meaningful work for young weapons designers after years of the United States' relying on old designs, nuclear experts said.
Instead, Congress gave the Energy Department the amount it had requested, $9 million, but told it to use the money for modifying existing weapons to keep them reliable, an aide to the House Appropriations Committee said.
Representative David L. Hobson, the Ohio Republican who is the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, said in a speech in August to a symposium on post-cold-war nuclear strategy that he saw the administration's call for research on the new bombs and the earth penetrator, along with a proposal to shorten the lead time required to resume nuclear testing, as "very provocative and overly aggressive policies that undermine our moral authority to argue that other nations should forgo nuclear weapons.''
"We cannot advocate for nuclear nonproliferation around the globe and pursue more useable nuclear weapons options at home,'' Mr. Hobson said at the symposium, which was sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment.
The Senate was friendlier to the Energy Department's budget request but in a closed negotiating session to reconcile the two measures, Mr. Hobson's position prevailed.
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and a sponsor of amendments in 2002, 2003 and this year to kill the bunker buster, proclaimed the cut as "the biggest victory that arms control advocates in Congress have had since 1992,'' when limits were put on nuclear testing. All of Mr. Markey's amendments failed, but the votes were increasingly close, the last one 214 to 204.
The Modern Pit Facility, which would replace the old Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant for building the triggers of nuclear weapons, got $7 million in the bill; the administration had asked for $20 million. The action will delay a decision on where to build the factory, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the part of the Energy Department that is in charge of nuclear weapons.
Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said the department was still studying the appropriations bill.
"Over all, Congress has supported the N.N.S.A.'s programs,'' Mr. Wilkes said. "While we are disappointed Congress did not follow the administration's requests in several areas, we'll have to take a long look and see what we're going to do down the line.''
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- colorado
Allard wants GAO review of Flats cleanup
Denver Post
By Kim McGuire
November 23, 2004
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2552102,00.html
Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard has asked the Government Accountability Office for a third review of the $7.2 billion cleanup at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.
"We need independent assurance that the cleanup is on time, on budget and that the site meets the stringent environmental standards outlined for the contractor when the project began," said Allard, chairman of the Senate Armed Services panel's Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, which oversees Department of Energy nuclear-cleanup projects.
Specifically, the Loveland Republican has asked the congressional research office to assess whether the job will be done by 2006 and meet all requirements of the original cleanup agreement.
Allard also wants the office to evaluate whether the cleanup will be sufficient to protect human health and the environment after it becomes a national wildlife refuge.
For four decades, until an FBI raid shut it down for safety violations in 1989, Rocky Flats built plutonium triggers for more than 70,000 nuclear warheads.
Consequently, portions of the sprawling site between Boulder and Golden were contaminated with radioactive elements.
Allard has twice before requested that the GAO assess the Rocky Flats closure plan. Those two assessments primarily focused on the cleanup's pace and budget.
"We welcome this review and will cooperate in any way we can," said Karen Lutz, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy.
The Rocky Flats cleanup is overseen by several federal and state agencies and monitored by several other groups.
"Bringing in a third party to report on matters that relate to the budget and the technical side of things should always be part of the process," said David Abelson, executive director of the Rocky Flats Coalition of Governments.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
-------- nevada
US Delays Plan to Seek Permit for Nuclear Waste Site
Reuters
By Chris Baltimore
November 23, 2004
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=441
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Monday delayed its plan to file an application to build a nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert, citing an unresolved court case and budget questions.
The Energy Department had planned to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of December for a permit to build a massive underground storage depot beneath Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"We're revising that original goal," Energy Department spokesman Joseph Davis said. "We don't anticipate significant delays, even though we have not nailed down a hard date."
The administration wants to open the repository in 2010, but recent delays call into question the timetable for the plan to store 77,000 tons of waste from 103 U.S. nuclear power reactors.
"Everything hasn't gone according to plan," Davis said. "There are some outstanding issues we've got to deal with."
The department must weigh a court decision ordering it to prevent radiation leaks for more than 10,000 years, as well as budget constraints, Davis said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in July rejected Nevada's attempt to block the plan on constitutional grounds.
But the court also said the administration wrongly ignored a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to ensure safety from leaks for well beyond 10,000 years. Radioactive releases could peak in 300,000 years and the administration must assure safeguards on that scale, it said.
There are also budget concerns.
Some opponents of Yucca in Congress, including new Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have tried to choke the project through the appropriations process.
Congress on Saturday approved a $388 billion spending bill for federal government programs that set aside $577 million to fund Yucca, equal to current levels but short of the $880 million sought by the Energy Department.
Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants -- which suppklies about 20 percent of U.S. electricity -- is piling up, with over 50,000 tons of it stored at over 100 temporary locations in 39 states.
-----
DOE says it won't get Yucca Mountain application in by Dec. 31
Associated Press
November 23, 2004
http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=2600956
LAS VEGAS Word out of Washington this morning that the Energy Department WON'T meet its goal of getting an application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump filed by the end of the year after all. The Las Vegas Sun reports that Margaret Chu -- the D-O-E official who oversees the project -- told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at a meeting today that the department's revising its schedule.
Chu didn't give a new time frame for submitting a license application, but says she doesn't expect long delays.
It's not clear if that means the D-O-E will still try to meet its goal of opening the national nuclear repository by 2010.
The Energy Department wants to entomb 77-thousand tons of the nation's most radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The N-R-C is the agency that'll have to decide whether to issue an operating license.
--------
In Deal, Aide to Reid To Be Named to NRC
Nevada Senator Opposes Waste Site
By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5557-2004Nov22.html
In a deal to let 175 of President Bush's nominees take office, an adviser to new Democratic leader Harry M. Reid, the Senate's staunchest opponent of a nuclear waste dump in his home state of Nevada, will be named to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
For months Senate Republicans had refused to take up, or even hold a hearing, on the nomination of Gregory Jaczko, Reid's adviser on nuclear issues.
In turn, Reid, who has pledged to try to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, had blocked the Bush nominations.
In negotiations just before Congress recessed during the weekend, an agreement was worked out: The White House promised Jaczko would be appointed to a limited two-year term while Congress was in recess, and Reid lifted his hold on the package of Bush nominations, which then zipped through the Senate.
Also, it was agreed that a Republican nominee to the NRC, retired Navy Vice Adm. Albert H. Konetzni Jr., would be put on the commission and probably would become its chairman late next year.
The White House already had sent Konetzni's nomination to the Senate this month, hoping to resolve an impasse that had kept the president's nominations in congressional limbo. Among them were senior positions across the executive branch and at such entities as Amtrak, the Social Security Administration and the judiciary.
Some Republicans and executives in the nuclear industry had opposed Jaczko's nomination bitterly, fearing that he would work to further Reid's desire to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.
The NRC is expected to begin considering a license for the facility next year. Under the compromise reached on the commission's nominations, Jaczko agreed not to participate in matters related to Yucca Mountain for the first year of his two-year term.
The licensing process is expected to take at least three years once an application is received from the Energy Department next year.
Margaret Chu, director of the Energy Department office that heads the Yucca program, recently informed regulators that the department will not meet a Dec. 31 target to submit a license application, officials said yesterday. It had been widely believed the target would be missed because of financing problems and adverse court decisions involving radiation standards.
Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who opposed Jaczko's nomination, said he was comfortable with the arrangement after the White House assured him Jaczko would not be renominated by Bush after his two years on the commission.
A Reid spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said that the agreement "in no way prohibits [Jaczko] from being renominated."
By law, three of the five NRC commissioners must be of the same party as the president. The commission currently has two Republicans and one Democratic member.
Jaczko, a physicist who joined Reid's staff in 2001 as a nuclear adviser, did not return telephone calls to his office yesterday.
"Greg is eminently qualified to serve as a commissioner," Reid said in a statement. "He is a scientist first and has the background and experience necessary to evaluate information objectively."
Domenici and 15 other Republican senators informed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) that it would be impossible to confirm Jaczko without senators first having the opportunity to question him at a formal hearing.
"A nominee as controversial as Greg Jaczko will not be confirmed . . . for the sake of political expedience," Domenici said.
An appointment to a post while Congress is in recess does not require Senate confirmation but is good for only the length of the congressional session, which is two years. A normal NRC appointment is for five years.
On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
-------- us nuc waste
Yucca Foe's Aide Gets Nuclear Panel Post
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 23, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Appointments.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Yucca%20Appointments
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a deal to let 175 of President Bush's nominees take office, an adviser to new Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Senate's staunchest opponent of a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, will be named to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
For months Senate Republicans had refused to take up, or even hold a hearing, on the nomination of Gregory Jaczko, Reid's adviser on nuclear issues.
In turn, Reid, who has pledged to try to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, had blocked the Bush nominations.
In negotiations just before Congress recessed during the weekend, an agreement was worked out: the White House promised Jaczko would be appointed to a limited two-year term while Congress was in recess, and Reid lifted his hold on the package of Bush nominations, which zipped through the Senate.
Also, it was agreed that a Republican nominee to the NRC, retired Navy Vice Admiral Albert H. Konetzni, would be put on the commission and probably would become its chairman late next year.
The White House already had sent Konetzni's nomination to the Senate this month hoping to resolve an impasse that had kept the president's nominations in congressional limbo. Among them were senior positions across the executive branch and at such entities as Amtrak, the Social Security Administration and the judiciary.
Some Republicans and executives in the nuclear industry had opposed Jaczko's nomination bitterly, fearing that he would work to further Reid's desire to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.
The NRC is expected to begin considering a license for the facility next year. Under the compromise reached on the NRC nominations, Jaczko agreed not to participate in any Yucca Mountain related matters for the first year of his two-year term.
The licensing process is expected to take at least three years once an application is received from the Energy Department next year. Margaret Chu, director of the DOE office that heads the Yucca program, recently informed regulators the department would not meet a Dec. 31 target to submit a license application, officials said Monday. It had been widely believed the target would be missed because of financing problems and adverse court decisions involving radiation standards.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who opposed Jaczko's nomination, said he was comfortable with the arrangement after, he said, the White House assured him Jaczko would not be renominated by the president after his two years.
A Reid spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said that the agreement ``in no way prohibits (Jaczko) from being renominated.''
By law three of the five commissioners at the NRC must be of the same party as the president. The commission currently has two Republican and one Democratic member.
Jaczko, a physicist who joined Reid's staff in 2001 as a nuclear adviser, did not return telephone calls to his office Monday.
``Greg is eminently qualified to serve as a commissioner. He is a scientist first and has the background and experience necessary to evaluate information objectively,'' Reid said in a statement.
Domenici and 15 other Republican senators informed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist that it would be impossible to confirm Jaczko without senators first having the opportunity to question him at a formal hearing.
``A nominee as controversial as Greg Jaczko will not be confirmed ... for the sake of political expedience,'' said Domenici. An appointment to a post while Congress is in recess does not require Senate confirmation but is good for only the length of the congressional session, which is two years. A normal NRC appointment is for five years.
On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Office of Civilian Radioactive Wase Management: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
NIRS: http://www.nirs.org
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[ To reply - mailto:letters@washingtontimes.com ]
Sound science on Yucca disposal
November 23, 2004
Washington Times
Letters to the Editor
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20041122-095743-4248r.htm
It is remarkable how much progress has been made at Yucca Mountain, given that the anti-nuclear power lobby is bent on stopping anything that might encourage the safe use of nuclear energy and plays up worst-case scenarios involving waste disposal at Yucca ("Yucca's energy role," Editorial, Saturday).
The sound science and engineering progress attests to the appropriateness of the original choice of Yucca Mountain. Those who have visited the site are struck by the physical isolation of its location, with the almost total lack of water to disperse already hard-to-dissolve wastes.
This is an appropriate place to hold hazardous materials, such as nuclear waste, given that the Nevada test site, where for years nuclear weapons were detonated, is adjacent to the site. Finally, if innovative and economic uses of spent nuclear fuel are identified, the current plan is to have the wastes retrievable for at least 50 years.
Through their votes and with their elected representatives in Congress, the people of this country said they are interested in cleaner power that is not excessively priced, and that nuclear energy is certainly one of the best alternatives available.
MIKE CORRADINI
Chair Department of Engineering Physics University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wis.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Fighting Erupts in West Sudan Despite Accord
November 23, 2004
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/africa/23sudan.html?pagewanted=all
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Nov. 22 - Less than two weeks after the Sudanese government and rebels reached a partial agreement aimed at ending the conflict in Darfur, two clashes in that western Sudan region early Monday left at least 25 people dead and forced the evacuation of aid workers.
Jan Pronk, the top United Nations envoy for Sudan, said 15 to 20 police officers had been killed when rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army carried out a dawn attack on the town of Tawila in northern Darfur. Six civilians were killed, the United Nations mission said. African Union peacekeeping troops rescued 45 aid workers from the town by helicopter.
Mr. Pronk said in an interview here late Monday that Sudanese warplanes responded to the attack by circling overhead, but that reports of aerial bombings, which would be a violation of the recent accord, had not been confirmed by African Union troops investigating the incident.
Save the Children U.K., one of the relief groups whose staff members were evacuated from Tawila, said government warplanes had dropped at least one bomb about 50 yards from one of its feeding centers.
"I am afraid the government feels compelled not only to defend itself but to regain ground with violence," Mr. Pronk said, adding that he had already urged the government to refrain from bombing, spare civilians and instruct its allied militias to do the same.
A second attack took place at Kalma, a teeming displaced people's camp near the southern Darfur city of Nyala. A United Nations official said initial reports indicated that rebels had struck a police post inside the camp, killing at least four officers and wounding three civilians.
Reuters quoted Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail as saying that the police were attacked by a group of 10 rebels. Which of the three rebel forces operating in Darfur might have been responsible was unclear.
The two incidents, part of a steady increase in violence in the past several weeks, took place despite a promised détente by both sides and the threat of United Nations sanctions.
In talks sponsored by the African Union in Abuja, Nigeria, the government and its rebel foes agreed Nov. 9 to disclose the locations and numbers of their troops and to allow access for aid groups. The accord also obliged the government to cease aerial bombings but said its warplanes could fly over government territory.
Though it was unclear Monday night whether the government had violated that part of the agreement, United Nations officials said there was no doubt that the rebels had broken their side of the deal.
Mr. Pronk said a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army had denied his forces' involvement in the Tawila attack.
Tension between Arab nomads and local farmers had been simmering for years in Darfur, mostly over land and water rights. By early last year, an armed insurgency emerged. It was met with crushing force from government troops and allied Arab militias. Some 1.6 million people have been left homeless by the fighting.
-------- arms
China urges EU not to place obstacles in relations by keeping arms ban
BEIJING (AFP)
Nov 23, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041123092658.vmo33brf.html
China Tuesday urged the European Union not to create obstacles to the future development of relations and repeated its call for a 15-year-old arms embargo to be lifted at a bilateral summit next month.
"We hope the European Union will pursue this issue from the overall picture of China-Europe relations," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a regular press briefing when asked about the arms embargo.
"(We hope it will) do more things that are conducive towards the all-round development of our relations rather than creating unfavourable issues," she said.
The spokesman urged the EU to make a "wise decision" as soon as possible.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, said Monday that Europe's message to Beijing at a December 8 China-EU summit would be upbeat.
However, he insisted that human rights concerns must still be met before the arms ban can be lifted.
Zhang declined to comment on whether the expected early release of prominent dissident Liu Jingsheng this week was a gesture to demonstrate an improvement on human rights issues in China.
Liu's mother said the democracy campaigner would be released from a 15-year jail sentence on Saturday, two-and-half years early.
The EU embargo was imposed on China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but some EU states -- notably France and Germany -- argue that it is outdated.
-------- britain
Britain Proposes National ID Cards; Critics See a Political Ploy
November 23, 2004
By ALAN COWELL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/europe/23cnd-britain.html?pagewanted=all
LONDON, Nov. 23 - Invoking a global threat of terrorism, the British government announced plans today to introduce national identity cards for the first time since the Second World War. An opposition legislator responded that the government wanted to create a "climate of fear" in advance of elections expected next year.
The proposal was included in a list of 37 draft laws outlined by Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of the government at the ceremonial opening of Parliament, an event conducted with pomp from the golden Royal Throne in the House of Lords. While the queen, Britain's head of state, traditionally summarizes proposed legislation, the list is actually drawn up by government ministers.
The most contentious law related to a plan to begin introducing a national identity card in 2008, a measure the government asserts is needed to fight terrorism and organized crime, among other ills. In her speech, the queen said Britons "live in a time of global uncertainty with an increased threat from international terrorism and organized crime."
Speaking later, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "With terrorism, illegal immigration and organized crime operating with so much greater sophistication, identity cards in my judgment are long overdue."
But opposition conservatives and liberal democrats assailed the plans as an effort to raise levels of fear in Britain in the hope of winning votes at elections, possibly next May. Today's announcement of a legislative program may, in fact, be the last of its kind before the election, whose date has not been formally announced.
A spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, Mark Oaten, said the government hoped to create a "climate of fear" through measures to combat terrorism and crime. The government also announced other security-related moves today, including proposals for new counterterrorism legislation and for a new police unit akin to the F.B.I. in the United States.
A Conservative spokesman, Liam Fox, said, "It is clear that they are trying to raise the fears from terrorism in the country at the present time."
Britain ceased issuing national identity documents to its citizens 52 years ago, after the Second World War.
But identity cards have become commonplace in many parts of continental Europe, supplanting passports for cross-border travel within much of the European Union. In Britain, opponents argue that their use will infringe on civil rights, since they will be accompanied by a national database containing information about everyone living in Britain. The cards are expected to include personal information like names and addresses coupled with so-called biometrics like computerized fingerprint records.
Outside Parliament today, protesters accused the government of mounting what one demonstrator, Mark Littlewood, called "an enormous threat to privacy and liberty."
Protesters brandished a rubber stamp in the form of a supermarket bar code, saying the government plans for a database were "the moral equivalent of bar-coding the entire population."
The identity cards are likely to be introduced beginning around 2008, when Britons applying for a new passport will be required to obtain an identity card at the same time for a combined cost of $160. The government plans to make the cards compulsory at a later date. Initially, the government suggested that an identity card would be used primarily to prevent misuse of free public services like the National Health Service. But the argument now is that the cards will protect British freedoms against an array of perils that include terrorism and people smuggling.
"In the end, people have to be safe to enj