NucNews - December 12, 2004



-------- NUCLEAR 


-------- accidents and safety

Restarting a Reactor With a Flawed Part

The New York Times Company

By JOHN SULLIVAN

December 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/nyregion/12salem.html?pagewanted=2&oref=login

Managers of the Salem nuclear power station want to restart a troubled reactor later this month, even though New Jersey regulators have objected and an internal company report warn that flaws in a critical pump could cause an accident.

Restarting the reactor at the giant plant in southwestern New Jersey will require the approval of federal regulators. Officials of the plant's operator, P.S.E.G. Nuclear L.L.C., said that restarting the plant would pose no danger to the public and that contingency plans had been drawn up should the pump fail.

The first serious problems with the pump, called a recirculation pump, were raised in an internal report written by company engineers in April 2003. The pump helps cool one of the three reactors at the nuclear power station, about 10 miles south of Wilmington, Del.

Last month, a second engineering team concluded the pump's steel drive shaft was probably cracked, noting that, at certain speeds, the pump bangs "like a freight train." And, an advisory from the reactor's manufacturer, General Electric, said the pump has run far longer than it should without a drive shaft inspection.

One internal company report warns that if the pump burst, it could cause an accident by spilling cooling water from the reactor vessel. The company says this type of accident is highly unlikely. Officials said such an accident would not endanger the public, but it could flood the gigantic building that surrounds the Hope Creek nuclear reactor with radioactive water.

"We would cool the plant down, and we would go in and fix it," said A. Christopher Bakken III, president and chief nuclear officer of P.S.E.G. Nuclear.

Top managers at Salem, as a result, have not replaced or fully repaired the pump, and they have concluded that it can be safely operated in the short term. With the company planning to restart the Hope Creek reactor - it was shut down for repairs following an unrelated emergency in October - company officials say they are prepared to use the pump for another 18 months.

"I would not authorize start-up nor would I allow operation of Hope Creek if I had any doubts about the operational safety of this system or any major plant system," Mr. Bakken said in a written statement.

New Jersey's top nuclear regulator, however, has disputed the decision, arguing that the pump should be repaired before the reactor restarts. Other experts have said the pump is so important - and the potential consequences of its failure so serious - that repairs are required.

"We have advised Chris Bakken that we thought they should replace it," said Jill Lipoti, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's assistant director for radiation protection. "But we have no regulatory role to tell them to shut it down and do so."

That authority rests with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which now has inspectors reviewing the condition of the plant. Commission officials must sign off on the operation of the pump before the Hope Creek reactor is allowed to restart. Diane Screnci, spokeswoman for the commission's regional office in King of Prussia, Pa., said the agency was reviewing data supplied by P.S.E.G. and would not comment until the review was completed.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog organization in Washington, has called on P.S.E.G. to replace the drive shaft. David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the organization, said there was ample evidence that the pump was damaged and that there was no reason to delay repairs. "The place is shaking itself apart," he said.

The story of the Hope Creek pump is unfolding against a backdrop of chronic problems that P.S.E.G. acknowledges have plagued the station for years. Salem, the country's second largest nuclear power plant in terms of electric generation, supplies electricity to more than two million customers.

But it has recently drawn the ire of regulators for maintenance problems. A nine-month federal investigation this year uncovered problems from a leaky generator to malfunctioning water pumps. Some employees also said they were reluctant to report problems because they feared retaliation from supervisors.

After the investigation finished this summer, regulators placed the plant under increased scrutiny.

The company has committed to spend millions of dollars to fix the problems, both by replacing equipment and ensuring that workers are free to complain without retaliation. In a public meeting on Dec. 2, N.R.C. officials said P.S.E.G. had made notable progress, although more improvements are needed.

The Hope Creek recirculation pump did not figure in the recent federal investigation, although questions have surrounded its operation for several years. The recirculation pump, which is connected by pipes to the Hope Creek reactor vessel, helps move water through the core to increase the reactor's efficiency.

The water level is critical because it helps generate power and cools the fuel inside the reactor. The plant can safely shut down even if the recirculation pump stops, but it cannot operate long without the pump.

"The recirculation pump is an important component of the plant's cooling system and, therefore, is an important safety component," Mr. Bakken said in a recent statement.

Workers first called attention to the pump because parts called seals were wearing out far faster than normal. The seals, which help stop water from spilling from the pump, are supposed to last six years, but they were wearing out every 18 months.

Workers also reported that the pump leaked radioactive water, according to an internal company report. In fact, the report says, it leaks so much that it has forced operators to shut down the reactor at times to avoid exceeding federal limits.

Also, engineers found that pressure waves from the pump had been rattling nearby equipment, causing valve handles and wheels to fall onto the floor. For years, workers have simply screwed the parts back on, Mr. Bakken said. He said the pressure waves were not related to problems with the pump's drive shaft, but were caused by a different part of the pump.

After workers' reports, P.S.E.G. assigned a team of engineers to examine the pump and recommend repairs. In April 2003, the engineers concluded that the steel drive shaft that runs the pump was bent, causing the machine to vibrate every time it rotated. Their report recommended that managers replace the shaft when the reactor was off line for scheduled repairs this fall.

Managers were preparing to shut the reactor down for repairs when a broken steam pipe forced the reactor operators to conduct an emergency shutdown on Oct. 10. During that shutdown, a critical safety system used to blast water into the reactor failed. P.S.E.G. recently said that the failure was caused by workers using the wrong type of lubricant on a pump - unrelated to the recirculation pump - that powers the system, causing the other pump to seize up at a key moment.

After the emergency, the plant remained closed for scheduled repairs. Mr. Bakken then hired the engineering firm Sargent & Lundy to evaluate the recirculation pump.

The firm concluded that the recirculation pump was safe to use for 18 months longer, but the engineers warned that this could change rapidly. In the report, Sargent & Lundy recommended that P.S.E.G. add sensors to the pump and monitor them carefully. If the vibrations increase, Sargent & Lundy said, the "window between the rise and potential shaft failure is expected to be small."

Sargent & Lundy relied on seven years of readings from sensors that record vibrations to make their recommendation. Engineers use the readings to evaluate damage to internal parts like the drive shaft. Engineers with P.S.E.G. have said the vibrations at Hope Creek are well below the manufacturer's safety limits.

After analyzing the readings, Sargent & Lundy concluded that the vibrations were stable and the pump could continue to operate safely. According to Sargent & Lundy's report, the vibrations worsened - nearly doubling - from 2000 to 2002. But in 2002, they suddenly decreased.

Mr. Bakken said P.S.E.G.'s engineers are not certain about why the system suddenly improved. The company acknowledges that it moved the sensors used to measure vibrations at the same time the vibrations lessened. But Mr. Bakken said that did not affect the ultimate analysis that the vibrations had lessened and that the pump was safe.

In any case, Mr. Bakken said, the sensors would be constantly monitored from now on. He said an alarm system was being connected to the sensors, and if vibrations rose, the alarm would sound. Mr. Bakken said he was confident that operators would have enough time to shut down before the pump's drive shaft could break. "I will personally make sure of that before this plant is allowed to start up," he said.

The company is now making its argument to regulators. Although the state says the company should replace the bent drive shaft, the final decision will rest with the federal regulators at the N.R.C.

The commission has assigned a team to evaluate P.S.E.G.'s plan, including pump experts from N.R.C. headquarters. Although the federal regulators will not comment until the investigation is complete, meetings are scheduled with P.S.E.G. officials sometime this week.



-------- britain

Nuclear 'white elephant' eyes a profit

By Clayton Hirst

12 December 2004 UK Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=592201

A controversial BNFL nuclear plant at Sellafield, which has cost taxpayers £473m and been branded a white elephant, is expected to make its first profit next year, according to confidential figures.

The Independent on Sunday has learnt that BNFL is expecting to generate £45m of income in the 12 months to 31 March 2006 from the sale of so-called Mox fuel from its Cumbrian facility.

The projections have been passed to the Government's new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which will use the money to help fund the clean-up of Britain's radioactive sites.

The Mox plant has been dogged with technical problems and, despite the huge sums of money invested in it, BNFL still has not managed to complete the assembly of any Mox fuel.

However, BNFL executives hope to secure the first sale of Mox fuel to the Swiss power company NOX next year. It is understood that BNFL has also secured potential orders from German energy giant E.ON and Swedish utility OKG.

Tony Blair personally pushed through the go-ahead for the Mox plant in 2001 against the wishes of his then environment minister, Michael Mea-cher. The Government has written off the £475m invested in the plant. Mr Meacher, along with the former Conservative environment secretary John Gummer, is calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the Mox plant.

Mr Gummer said: "We need clear and open information from BNFL to show that the money they expect to make from Mox is going to be there."

The NDA will begin life on 1 April with £2.2bn to spend in its first year. Around £1bn of this is expected to be used on cleaning up and operating BNFL's Sellafield facility. The various Sellafield operations, including Mox fuel generation, are forecast to produce £860m next year.

A BNFL spokesman said: "We cannot comment on the Mox figures as they are commercially confidential." The NDA also refused to comment. 



<a name="du"></a>

-------- depleted uranium

Danger Dismissed: How the Pentagon downplays the risks of depleted uranium weapons
Uranium Dust Leaves a Trail

dailypress.com

December 12, 2004

http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du-day1super,0,588771.htmlstory?coll=dp-breaking-news

While U.S. forces fight in the streets of Iraq, scientists are finding more evidence that the depleted uranium weapons we've given them to defeat the enemy are a hazard to friend and foe.

The weapons, first used in the Persian Gulf War, provide a decided battlefield advantage. But the mildly radioactive toxic dust that results when they're used successfully also might be why veterans of the 1991 war have a disability rate three times as high as those for Vietnam and World War II vets.

The Pentagon dismisses any link between those illnesses and depleted uranium. This week, the Daily Press takes an in-depth look at the latest science.

You'll see why some experts think now is too soon to pull the plug on research into whether cancers and brain damage result from breathing the dust. You'll find out why the U.S. military uses an inferior process to identify whether our forces have depleted uranium in their bodies and how British vets are signing up for a better test.

You'll meet Matt Rohman of York County, a Gulf War veteran who's lost all feeling in his feet and fingers, living every day in pain. Government doctors say his problems are related to the war, but they don't know how or why. Will a new generation of warriors meet the same fate?

-----

Part One of the series 

'Silver Bullet,' Black Dust - Chapter 1: Looking for a cause, looking for a cure.

Many vets suspect the magic weapon of the 1991 Persian Gulf War caused their continuing health problems. The Pentagon dismisses the dangers.

dailypress.com
BY BOB EVANS
December 12 2004

http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du1,0,6357027,print.story?coll=dp-breaking-news

For Matt Rohman, the symptoms began about the time that his unit returned to its barracks in Germany after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

First came a fatigue that sleep couldn't cure. Then severe pains in his joints. His teeth started falling out; his hands and feet went numb. Asthma grabbed his lungs. Debilitating migraine headaches squeezed his skull for days at a stretch. Sleeplessness and other symptoms followed.

Now every day for Rohman, 40, begins the same: waking up in his York County home and trying to figure out how many of the pills and inhalers from the Veterans Affairs hospital he'll have to use.

He wants to swallow just enough to keep his lungs working and the pain at tolerable levels. He's willing to ignore some of his problems to keep some of the drugs in their bottles. That way, his wife, 22-month-old son, 11-year-old daughter and what's left of his life don't disappear into a medicinal fog.

At best, he'll spend the day with no feeling in his feet or hands, watching his kids play, pretty much stuck to a chair or the couch. You could stub out a lit cigarette on any of his fingers or toes, and he wouldn't feel it because of the neuropathy - a nerve disorder that leaves him unable to feel anything. On a good day, he's able to hobble across the room or maybe go out with his family for an hour or two.

The bad days bring pain in his head too intense for him to be much help to his family or himself. Those days can also mean swelling in his extremities so severe, the tips of his toes and fingers look like toadstools and he can't walk at all.

After years of testing and examinations, doctors from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have concluded that something happened to Rohman's brain or central nervous system during the war. The neurological and other symptoms make that clear.

Repeated tests, including brain and body scans, show that his brain is swollen. But there's no evidence of a physical injury or cause, those doctors' reports say, leaving them stumped about why he's so debilitated.

The neurological and other symptoms that Rohman suffers are mirrored in tens of thousands of others who served in the war. When Rohman filed his final plea for VA benefits related to wartime service, the document noted that Rohman had 11 of the 13 officially recognized symptoms consistent with Gulf War service-related illness. One of the 13 applied only to women.

The government lists 20 active theories of what caused these problems.

But it provides no answers.

It doesn't even know how many veterans have these problems or where they live. All that's known is that of the 697,000 who deployed in the war, more than 183,000 had service-related disabilities at the end of 2003, with thousands more applications pending. That's 26 percent of the total, three to five times higher than the rate of disability after World War II (9 percent), the Korean War (5 percent) and the Vietnam War (9 percent) for a comparable period.

All from a war that lasted 100 hours, while the others went on for years.

Why?

Perhaps it was the highly potent bug repellent that the military used to keep away the sand fleas and other pests in the deserts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Perhaps it was the experimental pills that troops were ordered to take to ward off the effects of disease and chemical weapons.

Perhaps it was the residue of their own government's most effective weapon for defeating enemy armor - the tank-killing projectiles made from depleted uranium.

In the past few years, while the media and public have been paying attention to another war in the region, doctors and researchers have been finding out more about depleted uranium and how it might be responsible for some of the problems suffered by veterans of the Gulf War. Some of this research hasn't been made public yet, while other findings made ripples only among doctors and professors still in the hunt for a cause and a cure.

There's now physical evidence that depleted uranium, once in the body, migrates to the brain, lungs, bones and testicles of rats and mice. Researchers have found that even a single particle placed in contact with human bone cells can set off a chain reaction of cell and chromosomal abnormalities of the type thought to cause cancer.

They've also found that rats with depleted uranium in their bodies develop tumors and cellular mutations consistent with cancer. And that mice who breathe in tiny bits of the metal - just like the soldiers on the battlefield - get genetic mutations thought to be indicative of cancer.

PENTAGON UNWILLING TO FUND NEW RESEARCH INTO ILLNESS

Despite their efforts, these researchers haven't been able to show why brain scans on Gulf War vets show abnormalities that don't appear in scans of other servicemen and women who didn't go to the war. They just know that it's further proof that there's a real problem among those vets.

They also can't say why men and women who deployed in the Gulf War are twice as likely as others their age to get a fatal neurological disorder known as ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease.

The questions demand answers. To get them, more money and scientific patience is needed, these scientists say.

But the main source of that money for the past 13 years - the Pentagon - says it isn't interested in pursuing new research into the health problems of its former soldiers. Especially when it comes to studying the health effects of using depleted uranium on the battlefield, a use that gives the United States and its allies a lopsided advantage in ground wars.

Pentagon officials have long dismissed the possibility that any of the veterans' problems are the result of the radioactive toxic dust that results when depleted uranium weapons hit hard targets. This fall, they released a $6 million study that they labeled "Capstone" - a title picked because they say it should close the book on whether inhaling depleted uranium on the battlefield is a health risk worth considering.

A number of scientists say it's too soon to stop investigating the possible dangers of these weapons, especially when there have been so few experiments that show what happens when animals or humans inhale the special type of dust created when depleted uranium weapons hit their targets.

None of the recent research that points to possible problems with the weapons was included or addressed in Capstone, not even the work performed by government scientists or researchers financed by the Army and Department of Defense. The Army officer who oversaw the study says that's because there was a conscious effort to base the work on "mainstream science," instead of "preliminary data."

Critics say that's the government's way of simply ignoring the emerging and potentially damning evidence on the subject. With the building body of data, they say, this is no time to label something the final word on depleted uranium's dangers.

The skeptics include a panel of scientists, doctors and veterans appointed by the Bush administration to study the nature and status of research into the cause of the veterans' illnesses. The panel issued its first report last month and said more research into possible health effects from depleted uranium was needed.

"We're not finished," says Lea Steele, the panel's scientific director.

The committee's report says poorly planned and administered research programs are partly to blame for having so little to show for the $247 million spent on research into Gulf War illnesses so far. It points no fingers, but it does note that 74 percent of that money has been controlled by the Pentagon and that most of it has gone to support the now-discounted idea that stress and psychological problems account for the physical symptoms that vets suffer.

Steve Smithson is a member of the panel and the assistant director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division. He says the Pentagon has been trying to prematurely end the debate about possible health hazards from depleted uranium for years.

"These are very effective weapons," he says, "and they want to keep them."

WEAPONS' POTENTIAL DANGERS WERE KNOWN FOR DECADES

Depleted uranium was used in combat for the first time in the Gulf War. The weapons proved so effective, troops began calling them "The Silver Bullet," in honor of their near-magical ability to kill the enemy.

The weapons enable U.S. tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles to fire accurately and decisively from much greater distances than other anti-tank weapons used in ground combat. That means U.S. troops can kill the enemy before the enemy can fight back.

Last year, when Operation Iraqi Freedom began, the weapons' effectiveness played a big role. It was a reason commanders said they could whip Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with a smaller, lighter - but more mobile - force than they used in the 1991 Gulf War.

Before that, many people thought that depleted uranium wasn't much more than low-level nuclear garbage.

Depleted uranium is the byproduct of making "enriched uranium" for nuclear weapons and fuel. The process involves stripping natural uranium of its most radioactive components for use in bombs and power plants. What's left is "depleted" uranium.

In the early days of making nuclear weapons, this byproduct was considered a problematic waste. But almost immediately, weapons researchers began trying to make something with it. It took more than 20 years, but by the late 1970s, they'd succeeded. The Army, Navy and Air Force each had a weapon using the material.

But they had to wait to see their creation anywhere except a test range. The first war that involved U.S. forces using tanks against hostile forces who also had tanks was the Persian Gulf War.

One of the weapons' special properties creates what all acknowledge is the downside of these weapons.

When those weapons strike something hard, they slice through the target, getting sharp where other metals get dull. They get sharper by shedding millions and millions of tiny bits of flaming depleted uranium, spitting out the bits like shavings from a pencil in a high-speed sharpener.

Once cool, those bits become mildly radioactive toxic black dust particles, most of them small enough to inhale deep into the lungs. The Capstone study says those toxic particles will likely remain in the lungs for years.

U.S. researchers have known that the weapons' use created a long-lived radiological risk to the lungs since at least the early 1980s. They've also known that these tiny bits of black dust pose a potentially catastrophic health hazard for troops on a battlefield.

None of that was revealed publicly when the weapons were put to use. It wasn't until the mid-1990s that the government officially and publicly acknowledged that troops in the Gulf War had been exposed to this hazard and should have been warned and trained about the dangers beforehand.

By then, thousands and thousands of troops had started suffering the debilitating pains, neurological problems and other symptoms.

Rohman was one of them.

'WE ACTUALLY SLEPT UNDENEATH DESTROYED TANKS ...'

For three months after the fighting stopped, Rohman and his buddies in a 3rd Armored Division combat engineer squadron were ordered to crawl around in the black dust left over from successful shots of depleted uranium.

He was ordered to live and breathe in it while finishing the job of destroying damaged Iraqi tanks and munitions, to make sure that the enemy's equipment couldn't be used again.

"We actually slept underneath destroyed tanks and stuff because we figured they wouldn't fire at their own destroyed vehicles," Rohman says.

For months, the black dust covered many of those vehicles, rubbing off on Rohman's clothing, getting on his skin and often into his food and water.

Hundreds of other soldiers were ordered to do the same work, while thousands of others might have come in contact with the dust through curiosity or happenstance.

Neither Rohman nor the military can say how many of them got sick like he did. Rohman says none of the other soldiers from his unit came from nearby towns or cities, so he lost touch with them while focusing on his own deteriorating health. Researchers say the military didn't keep, or pursue, the kind of information that would help them make such determinations. They also say one of the biggest obstacles to solving the riddle of the illnesses is that people who appear to have the same experiences reacted differently - some getting ill and others staying well.

Many soldiers didn't pay the black dust any notice during the war because the military had never told them about the dangers.

"We didn't know any different," Rohman says.

The Pentagon acknowledged seven years after the war was over that it should have provided training that advised troops to avoid contact with the dust or to use safety masks and suits in the situations that Rohman described.

Instructions on depleted uranium weren't added to the Army's regular training program until the late 1990s. Since then, the requirements for telling troops about depleted uranium have been gradually relaxed for troops who don't fire or handle the weapons.

The Army has a long list of medical and training requirements that must be met before a soldier is supposed to be sent off to war. The checklist for Transportation Corps soldiers deploying from Fort Eustis to Iraq is long. But for the past two years, it hasn't included a requirement that soldiers in transportation units receive depleted uranium hazard training, even though the Army's own radiological experts said in 1997 that they should.

Military and medical officials say it's too early to tell what the effect will be on troops involved in the continuing fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Department of Defense policy - spurred by members of Congress critical of the way that the military handled health complaints after the Gulf War - requires all soldiers, sailors and airmen who come home from overseas wars to fill out a multipage questionnaire about their health and what they experienced.

The only specific mention of depleted uranium exposure on the questionnaire involves one item near the end of a list of 22 possible exposure risks. The list includes such mundane items as "paints," "sand/dust" and "vehicle or truck exhaust fumes." Some soldiers returning from Iraq say that because they were never given instruction on the possible hazards, they didn't know what to choose when given the options of "No," "Sometimes" or "Often" on this question.

Army, Air Force and Navy officials say anyone who checks "Sometimes" or "Often" is questioned further and tested, if necessary. They also say any man or woman in the military who deployed and asks for a test for depleted uranium will be given the test, no further questions asked. Department of Veterans Affairs officials say the same applies to those who served in the Persian Gulf War.

PROMISE TO PERFORM TESTS NOT FULFILLED FOR VETERANS

Yet, Rohman's medical records show that he made VA officials aware of his exposure to depleted uranium six years ago. He's sure that he told them earlier, but many of his records have been lost, and the earliest date that he can document is 1998.

When the Daily Press called the VA administrator responsible for the local testing program to find out why this problem persisted, she immediately agreed that a mistake had been made and took steps to bring Rohman in for evaluation. He still hasn't been tested.

It isn't clear whether things have gotten any better for veterans of the more recent fighting in Iraq.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, checked in the past year the health forms filled out by more than 1,000 troops who'd returned from the Gulf War. It found that very few of those who'd chosen "Sometimes" or "Often" got tested, said Dan Fahey, a congressional adviser who participated in a briefing on the study.

Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy group, says he's talked to dozens of soldiers just back from the current war who told him that doctors can't diagnose their ills but have refused to test them for depleted uranium exposure.

The soldiers even showed him medical records and other paperwork to prove it, he says. They won't go public for fear retaliation from the military.

Robinson and Smithson say they won't be surprised if there are thousands of veterans with undiagnosed, unexplained illnesses once the totals are in from Operation Iraqi Freedom and its aftermath. Rohman says he won't be surprised, either. He wonders whether this new generation of warriors will succumb to the same undetected poisons that he believes hit him. His brothers still wear military uniforms and could be called to combat tomorrow - one a Marine the other in the Army.

PENTAGON: WE'RE CONVINCED OUR METHOD IS ACCURATE

The Pentagon will say only that as of October, 20,000 troops had been evacuated from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for noncombat-related illnesses and injuries and that, on average, about 5,800 troops are on "medical hold" each day because military doctors haven't finished diagnosing or treating them. Only five people have tested positive for depleted uranium from the most recent war - all victims of friendly fire who had depleted uranium shrapnel in their bodies, the Pentagon says.

Getting tests for depleted uranium exposure from the U.S. military and VA might be a waste of time, anyway, say Robinson and experts who have developed those tests for other countries. "Even the test they offer is a less-than-respected test," Robinson says.

Scientists overseas have spent years creating a more accurate method of detecting whether there are even tiny amounts of depleted uranium in the human body.

They say the U.S. government relies on testing procedures and equipment that have a high margin of error and are capable of discerning the presence of depleted uranium only in limited circumstances. They say it's not much of a test if you really want to find radioactive and toxic dust in particles small enough to the inhaled.

The British government officially takes the same stance as the United State on the dangers of depleted uranium, but it's financed a much more exacting test capable of finding out whether someone has even small quantities of depleted uranium in their system. It doesn't settle whether the depleted uranium is harmful, but it can identify the veterans' who definitely have it in their bodies.

That would be an important step forward, several researchers say.

British veterans of the Persian Gulf War began signing up for the tests in late September.

Rohman would like to take it, but the U.S. military says it has no need to use it or even find out how it works.

"We're convinced that our method is sufficiently sensitive and accurate enough," said Lt. Col. Mark Melanson, manager of the health physics program at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, the Army's public health agency.

'OUR HUMAN RESEARCH ... HAS A LOT OF SEVERE LIMITATIONS'

He says the government labs used to identify soldiers with depleted uranium in their bodies can detect the substance as long as there are at least 3 to 5 nanograms of uranium per liter in a day's worth of urine.

The British test also involves a 24-hour urine sample. But it can accurately detect depleted uranium when only 0.1 nanogram of uranium per liter is present, making it capable of detecting amounts 30 times smaller or more.

The British also say their degree of uncertainty at these lower levels is less than 1 percent, a much smaller margin of error than the U.S. tests.

Melanson and other U.S. officials say anything below 3 nanograms of uranium in such a sample is clearly inconsequential. They cite studies of the known, respected science involving the health effects of uranium, specifically studies by the U.S. Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization.

But the co-author of the Institute of Medicine study, as well as an epidemiologist who was asked to review it to make sure it was scientifically sound, say that wouldn't be an accurate reading of the work at all.

Establishing a lower limwit for inhalation of depleted uranium hasn't happened, they say, because too little is known about how the substance reacts with tissues in various parts of the body.

"We have no idea," said Carolyn Fulco, the co-author of the Institute of Medicine study.

Beate Ritz, an epidemiologist and expert on cancer at the University of California, Los Angeles, agrees: "Our human research, as valuable as it is, has a lot of severe limitations."

Ritz, one of the scientists and health experts whom the institute asked to review its work to ensure accuracy, says it might take decades of following Gulf War veterans to have even a hazy picture when it comes to cancer.

Fulco and others note that the Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization said explicitly that the data on depleted uranium's health effects were limited and that more research needed to be done.

Still, Melanson thinks that the 50 years of research considered by the studies is enough to show that low levels of uranium or depleted uranium in a human's blood, lungs and other body tissue isn't a problem.

Most of that research involved uranium millers, miners and processors.

It fed the government health standards that the Pentagon used in the Capstone study to establish that inhaling or breathing the dust from the weapons shouldn't be considered a significant health risk on the battlefield. Alexandra Miller, a radiobiologist at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, says using that research to dismiss the possible health effects of depleted uranium weapons is a mistake.

There are many studies of uranium miners' health that indicate problems, she says. In addition, she says, the studies of miners and millers are, in many ways, irrelevant to the experiences of soldiers on the battlefield.

When it comes to depleted uranium, she says, there simply hasn't been enough research on animals to know what happens when rats or humans inhale the dust from these weapons.

The amount of depleted uranium dust that can be inhaled without harm simply isn't known yet, she says.

"We don't really know," she said. "Not even for a rat."

-----

Of Rodents and Radiation - Chapter 2:From the nose to the brain.
Experiments with rats find that inhaling dust from depleted uranium weapons can cause genetic mutations.

dailypress.com
BY BOB EVANS
December 12 2004

http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du2,0,6750244,print.story?coll=dp-breaking-news

In a New Mexico laboratory, researchers have been sliding rats into clear Plexiglas tubes with small holes at the end, openings just big enough for the animals' noses to poke through. Once in the tubes, the rats' noses jut into a central space called a plenum. All the air that they breathe comes through that space.

The plenum sits at the center of the tubes, like the hub of a big Plexiglas wheel. When the experiment begins, the air in the plenum is laced with carefully measured, breathable specks of depleted uranium.

Depending on the dose, the rats spend 15 minutes to six hours in the tubes, breathing the uranium-infused air. The researchers carefully have determined the amount of uranium and the length of time to mimic what happens to soldiers on a battlefield.

Afterward, some rats are dissected to find out whether the uranium that they breathed shows up in their brains, lungs, livers, larynxes, tracheas or bronchial lymph nodes. The rest of the rats will meet the same fate a few days, weeks or a year later - to test long-term effects from the same exposure.

The goal is to see whether the tiny pieces of uranium have migrated through their bodies into places that might explain the illnesses suffered by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico, home of the Plexiglas tubes and the rats, is one of the few places in the world where scientists are able to accurately simulate what happens when impurities in the air are inhaled. Some of the groundbreaking research on the effects of air pollution has been done there, and the U.S. military has turned to this lab since the 1970s to try to determine the health effects of inhaling depleted uranium.

Lovelace's labs typically are used to investigate hazards to the lungs. Government engineers and scientists have known for decades that the tiny bits of depleted uranium created when the weapons are used pose a health hazard in the lungs and kidneys. They've used computers and other methods to try to determine the details.

The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prove that there's no significant radiological or toxicological risk from the pieces of depleted uranium on a battlefield that are small enough to be inhaled. Their studies have focused on potential damage to the kidneys and lungs, where decades of science based on studies of uranium miners, millers and processors predict the most significant effects will be shown.

Scientists in New Mexico are looking at those organs, but they have their eye on a different, more important target this time: the brain.

In the controversy over depleted uranium weapons, nearly everyone agrees that soldiers and others in the immediate area of a blast at the time of impact might be endangered. They also agree that people who later crawl around in the dust or on the destroyed vehicles should use protective gear.

The big disagreement involves whether the dust can simply blow around in the desert away from the explosion, be inhaled, and kill people or make them sick. If this type of minimal contact is harmless, it means depleted uranium is an unlikely cause of the debilitating illnesses suffered by many Gulf War veterans.

If inhaling just a little bit is shown to cause dysfunction in the brain, central nervous system or other parts of the body, the U.S. military might be forced to give up using one of its most effective weapons for land warfare.

The Pentagon has dismissed this danger repeatedly and says there's no serious harm from inhaling depleted uranium on the battlefield - not when someone is in a tank struck by one of the weapons and certainly not afterward, from the dusty residue.

A number of scientists say that's a premature conclusion and that important questions need to be answered first.

SIMULATED MARCH THROUGH DESERT YIELDS A SURPRISE

One of those scientists, professor Johnnye L. Lewis of the University of New Mexico's College of Pharmacy, is trying to find out what happens to the brain and other parts of the central nervous system when someone inhales a lot of the dust and what happens when they inhale a little.

Unless there's evidence that depleted uranium is somehow getting into the brain or central nervous system, it's unlikely to be linked to the neurological and physical problems that many Gulf War veterans suffer. Doctors haven't been able to figure out why the veterans have those medical problems, and little is known about the effect that depleted uranium has on the brain.

The Army officially says depleted uranium is entirely safe in these scenarios, but it does want to know more. So it's financing Lewis' work.

Some of the tasks in Lewis' experiment are done with colleagues at Lovelace. But most take place in her lab at the university, a few miles away.

Before exposing the rats to uranium, Lewis and her colleagues spent months analyzing data, reading research reports and talking to Army generals about how troops move around during a war. They had to find other labs, such as Lovelace and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the different parts of the experiment and analysis could be authoritatively done. The goal was to design experiments that duplicated, as accurately as possible, what real soldiers on a battlefield encountered, Lewis says.

Once the scientists were satisfied, the Lovelace rats went to work.

In the first year, Lewis and her co-workers tested what they called the "tank-impact scenario," which involved exposing several groups of rats to very high doses of uranium (500 milligrams per cubic meter of air) for 15 minutes. That experiment simulated what would happen to someone in an enclosed area, such as a tank, when a depleted uranium weapon struck it.

What came next - detecting the very small quantities of uranium that entered the rats' bodies - takes specialized equipment, Lewis says.

To analyze the rats' brains, for instance, Lewis and her co-workers used a machine to cut the brains into slices thinner than 4/10,000th of an inch.

She also had to find another lab capable of detecting small quantities of depleted uranium in such small samples without destroying them.

Lewis picked Livermore, where a particle accelerator the size of a football field bombards the brain slices with protons. The barrage of protons produces X-ray signals and other readings that allow scientists to determine the presence or absence of uranium and other substances, as well as how much there is in the sample being tested.

When the Livermore scientists did their analysis during the first stage of the experiment, they found no evidence of uranium in the rats' brains, Lewis says. Some of the rats died from kidney damage before they were scheduled to be sacrificed and analyzed, but this was not too surprising. Years of research on uranium miners, millers and processors showed that the kidneys are particularly vulnerable during exposure to uranium dust.

Then the scientists began testing what they call the "march-through scenario," simulating what might happen if soldiers were ordered to walk through an area where tanks or other equipment had been hit with depleted uranium weapons. In this scenario, the rats are exposed to very small quantities of uranium (only 1 milligram per cubic meter of air) for six hours, Lewis says. Nothing remarkable happened.

The next phase involved finding out what happened if the insides of the rats' noses had been irritated by dust, like the small-grained Iraqi desert sand, before the animals are exposed to the uranium.

To do this, the lab used a component of bacteria that produces the same kind of bodily reaction as the powdery sand that blasts at troops in the Iraqi desert. After the irritation, the rats got the low dose of uranium in their air tubes.

This time, the rats had an important story to tell.

"In that case, in a small subset of animals, we did see uranium in the brain," she says.

The depleted uranium was even tracked from one part of the brain to another, linked by a neural pathway. That means it could go deeper in the brain, Lewis says.

The results are preliminary and involved only two of six rats in one group, But Lewis says the implications could be very important as the experiment is repeated and if the same results occur. She says it will be at least a year or more before she can say for sure how significant her findings are.

Lewis expects this phase to produce the best test of what most soldiers experienced in the war.

"If somebody's inhaling dust in the desert, they're likely to get some sort of irritation," she says. Later, when they walk or drive near battle sites, the dust would have been kicked up by others walking or driving ahead of them or by the winds, she says.

EXPERIMENTS COULD EXPLAIN HARM TO NERVOUS SYSTEMS

Scientists generally think that the body has a natural protective barrier called the blood/brain barrier. When impurities, such as toxins, get into the body, they are generally absorbed into the bloodstream. Blood cells, enzymes and other factors then break down those toxins before they get to the brain, protecting it from harm.

It appears that the uranium found in those two rat brains bypassed that process and is the result of direct neural transfer, Lewis says. That means the uranium probably went directly from nerve endings in the nose to the olfactory tissue in the brain, bypassing cleansing agents in the blood.

"I feel some confidence that this is a plausible pathway," Lewis says. If so, toxic aspects of inhaled uranium might also be carried directly from nerves in the nose to other parts of the brain to do damage elsewhere - and might explain many of the problems that Gulf War veterans are having, she says.

Those organs and parts haven't been looked at yet, she says.

If the migration of uranium to the brain can be repeated with more rats, the next step is to see how far into the brain the uranium can go, whether it reaches the spinal cord and central nervous system, and what effect it has, Lewis says. The big question is whether depleted uranium can be linked to the neurological problems experienced by Gulf War veterans.

Mohamed B. Abou-Donia and other Duke University researchers tested that possibility with rats and found evidence that the answer is yes. Because of tight restrictions placed on depleted uranium (the military and Department of Energy strictly regulate its ownership and use), they used a chemical compound very similar to the toxicity and radiological properties of what's used in military weapons. The substitute, uranyl acetate, is frequently used by military and other government researchers as a substitute for depleted uranium in experiments.

Abou-Donia and the scientists at Duke injected rats with various concentrations of the compound and found that high doses killed the rodents. Low doses significantly affected their ability to perform several sensory and motor-skills tests, such as gripping and walking on a beam. When they examined those animals' brains, they found changes in chemicals that affect how well the brain could function.

"The present results suggest that low-dose multiple exposure with uranyl acetate causes long-term neurobehavioral deficits after the initial exposure has ceased," the Duke scientists wrote in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior in 2002. They said the work showed that the weapons' use could affect the central nervous system, as well as the peripheral or neuromuscular system of the body, and that more research was needed.

SCANS OF THE BRAIN SHOW REDUCED CHEMICAL LEVELS

Rats and mice can tell us much about how chemicals will affect the human body. But sometimes, exposures that cause damage to the little animals do nothing to humans.

Do the illnesses suffered by Gulf War vets have a link to the brain?

A number of researchers have used brain-scanning equipment to study that question and say the answer is yes.

Using the scanners to look at the brains of sick Gulf War veterans, they've consistently found evidence of reduced levels of chemicals required for proper brain functions.

In the veterans, the scans zeroed in on parts of the brain thought related to chronic fatigue syndrome and the veterans' neurological problems.

Researchers say it's unlikely that these brain abnormalities existed before the war because the soldiers' behavior, physically and mentally, would have been noticeably impaired and prevented deployment. But the tests can't confirm what caused the problems or exactly when they began.

The suspects for the cause include depleted uranium dust, the use of heavy-duty bug spray, experimental anti-chemical-warfare medicine, vaccinations for diseases peculiar to the Persian Gulf region, genetics and exposures to toxins after the war. Some of those are known to affect the brain; others are being evaluated.

So far, the uranium in Lewis' experiments has shown up only in the olfactory bulbs of the rats' brains, an area where damage isn't likely to cause the symptoms that Gulf War vets suffer.

The smaller particles might be more dangerous, she says, because they're more likely to end up in the nose and therefore are available for transport into the brain. These smaller, lighter particles are also the ones more likely to be in the air - at nose level - hours, days or months after use of depleted uranium weapons, kicked up by vehicles, boots or winds.

Lewis suspects that in subsequent experiments, with longer exposures or higher doses, there will be evidence of depleted uranium migrating deeper and deeper into the brain, past the olfactory bulb and into places that might be linked to the debilitation that some of the veterans have experienced.

It's possible some people, and some rats, are more capable of withstanding the onslaught of the dust or uranium, perhaps because of stress, genetics or a combination of factors, she says. That would explain why some rats' brains succumbed to the one-two punch of dust and uranium and others didn't. It might also explain why some soldiers have come down with these symptoms, while others in their unit didn't.

SUSPECTED PREDICTOR OF CANCER FOUND IN VETS' BLOOD

Lewis says she hasn't completed the part of her research that involves looking at whether the inhaled uranium changes the neurochemicals in the brain - the chemicals that make the brain function well or poorly. That would help show whether inhaled uranium affected the neurological health of veterans exposed to it.

Her research follows work by other scientists who found that tiny pellets of depleted uranium implanted in the bodies of rats have resulted in collections of uranium in the brains, bones, kidneys, testicles and lymph nodes.

Terry C. Pellmar, a researcher at the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute, found evidence of changes in the brain as a result of those depleted uranium implants.

Some of the rats initially exhibited loss of mental function, but the effects weren't substantial or long-term, she says. Tests given to Gulf War vets with shrapnel in their bodies have shown no demonstrable evidence of impairment in their mental capacities either, she says. Memory loss, confusion and other mental impairments are among the symptoms that other veterans of the war complain of.

The Pentagon and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have been following several dozen Gulf War veterans who have small pieces of depleted uranium shrapnel in their bodies, testing them periodically for various health problems and indicators of carcinogenic and genetic abnormalities. A few soldiers thought to have inhaled depleted uranium dust are also in the study.

The most recent installment of this continuing study said no significant harm to the soldiers had been found, other than the obvious wounds of war that they'd suffered. The Pentagon often points to this research when asked about the health effects of the weapons, noting that these veterans likely have larger quantities of depleted uranium in their bodies than anyone who inhaled some dust on a battlefield.

What Pentagon officials don't mention is what some researchers in the program think is a potentially important finding.

Richard J. Albertini of the University of Vermont's Vermont Cancer Center is one of several co-authors of the shrapnel study. His part of the work included examining cells taken from the veterans to look for genetic changes that might prove harmful.

Albertini's specialty involves research into the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, or HPRT, gene, one of the 30,000 genes that every human being has in their cells.

Albertini is particularly interested in HPRT genes in T-lymphocytes - white blood cells important to the body's ability to ward off diseases, including cancers.

Albertini said blood samples from three of the 39 veterans in the most recently published shrapnel study showed an increased frequency of mutations of the HPRT gene, compared with earlier samples. The three-out-of-39 ratio is a statistically significant number, the study says.

Many scientists think that increased frequency of mutation in HPRT genes is a predictor of cancer. That's why HPRT was included in the study.

Albertini says the link between HPRT mutations and cancer hasn't been proven. A much larger study than those available to date would be needed to know for sure. Then would come research to determine what rate of increase might be indicative of a greater risk of cancer.

Right now, he says, "it's a canary in a coal mine. Just because the canary dies does not mean the miner is going to die, but it's a warning."

Cancer isn't one of the documented problems experienced by Gulf War veterans, Albertini says. Experts say it's too early to tell whether increased rates of cancer will be part of the problems those veterans suffer, though some forms might become evident now.

RATS THAT INHALED PARTICLES, DEVELOPED MUTATIONS

At this point, what's important about the mutation-rate increase is that it might indicate the possibility that veterans exposed to depleted uranium face increased risk of cancer in the future, Albertini says.

The increased mutations in the HPRT gene among veterans spurred another researcher in New Mexico, Vernon Walker, to hook up more rats to tubes to breathe in uranium.

"Lo and behold, he did get an increase in the frequency" of mutations of the HPRT genes in the rats, Albertini says. "So we think this sort of confirmed our hypothesis."

That hypothesis says "the important exposures are from inhalation, where all blood cells can be exposed, not from the shrapnel in a few where the exposure is local," Albertini adds.

All blood flows through the lungs and lymph nodes as part of the process of carrying oxygen to all parts of the body, while only a small fraction of someone's blood would come close enough to the tiny pieces of embedded shrapnel in veterans, Albertini says.

He says it makes sense that even a tiny piece of radioactive dust in someone's lung would have the potential to alter the genetics of more blood cells than shrapnel or a pellet.

That's why he thinks the potential for long-term harm from inhaled uranium dust is greater than that from shrapnel, especially given the small pieces the military leaves in the body when its doctors decide that more damage would result from surgery.

Albertini says he'd like to test that theory further, but so far, the military hasn't made any samples available from troops with more recent exposures.

Obtaining newer samples is crucial for determining whether there's a link between depleted uranium weapons and the mutations and, ultimately, cancer, Albertini says. The rate of mutations in HPRT genes returns to normal after a period of time, he says, so the veterans of the 1991 war won't exhibit this warning sign forever.

In the most recent examination of the veterans with shrapnel, he says, only two people exhibited the increased mutations seen in the earlier study.

That doesn't mean the other soldiers aren't at a higher risk of getting cancer, he says. The HPRT gene mutations are a marker that indicates that the radiation is having an effect on the blood. But they aren't the mutations suspected of causing cancer themselves. Those mutations are likely continuing, if the theory is correct, and could cause the chain reaction of effects that result in cancer, Albertini says.

Samples from troops exposed to depleted uranium dust in Operation Iraqi Freedom haven't been made available yet, but Albertini says further studies of how HPRT genes react in relation to depleted uranium are being planned. The object is to determine whether the relatively weak alpha radiation from small pieces of inhaled depleted uranium cause the type of mutations in the HPRT genes that were seen in the veterans, Albertini says.

Other researchers have seen similar genetic effects from exposure to depleted uranium. A German study found that 16 British soldiers who reported inhaling depleted uranium during their wartime service had five times the frequency of chromosomal aberrations as a group of 40 people who hadn't been exposed to the dust. The aberrations were of the type known to be indicative of radiation that alters the atomic structure of matter, the study said. None of the British veterans had depleted uranium shrapnel wounds.

Whether those veterans actually inhaled depleted uranium - and how much of it is left in their bodies all these years later - is unknown, the German scientists wrote.

At the time of their research, there was no reliable way to measure whether someone had inhaled very small amounts.

The German researchers noted that studies had found the type of uranium that results in the black dust from depleted uranium weapons remains in rat lungs longer than other forms of uranium. The high, intense heat that's part of forming the depleted uranium dust makes the particles not as prone to be dissolved by the blood and other fluids. On one of the few occasions when scientists have been able to perform an autopsy on a Gulf War veteran thought to have inhaled the black dust, lymph nodes related to the lungs showed unexpectedly high concentrations of particles from the decay of uranium, the German study says.

RESEARCH INDICATES A LONG LIFE IN THE LUNGS

Depleted uranium dust created after the weapons' use and small enough to inhale lasts for years in simulated lung fluid, according to a Pentagon study released this fall. The study says the smaller pieces tended to take longer to dissolve half their mass.

That means those bits, though small, are in contact with living tissue for a long time.

Researchers concerned with the safety of the weapons say that could prove important, as the conventional wisdom in science says that chemical toxicity, not radioactivity, is the likely source of any possible ills from inhaled depleted uranium.

Like other heavy metals (such as mercury, zinc and lead), uranium is a toxic chemical. Like those other metals, it's also a naturally occurring element. Nature puts a certain level of those metals into the food chain, the air we breathe and the water we drink. Mankind and modern life has added more, via air pollution and working with what's found in nature to create plumbing, machines, weapons and other tools.

As a result, our bodies and their waste products, including urine, contain some degree of all these metals.

How much is a safe level and how much is too much is the question, whether it be figuring out safe levels of mercury in fish or how much black depleted uranium dust a soldier can inhale without incident.

The toxic effects of these metals typically act like poisons carried through the bloodstream. They collect in parts of organs - often the kidneys or liver - and can destroy them. Uranium miners, millers and processors exposed to too much uranium dust typically have kidney damage; little tubes in the organs break down and malfunction.

Depleted uranium's radiological properties act differently. Until very recently, scientists thought that the effects of radioactivity occurred in very predictable paths and patterns, depending on the material, how big it was and whether it was emitting alpha, gamma or X-rays.

Like all uranium, depleted uranium emits mostly alpha radiation. Typically, alpha radiation isn't considered very dangerous because its power doesn't go very far and is easily blocked by a sheet of paper, clothing, the top layers of skin and other mundane items.

But once an alpha radiation source gets in the body, it's another story. Then there's no shield to protect the cells and tissue. The radius of alpha radiation is relatively short, but it's long-lasting and therefore powerful.

STUDY ANSWERS ALL QUESTIONS, PENTAGON SAYS

Pentagon and other government officials say risk from that radiation is negligible because the soldiers, even those caught in a tank hit with the weapons, wouldn't inhale enough depleted uranium dust to create a problem.

The military spent five years and $6 million to gather data on what actually happens when tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles are hit with depleted uranium. It released the data and its findings this fall in what it called the Capstone Study - a title designed to tell people that their research was the final word on the subject.

Real vehicles and vehicle parts were hit with depleted uranium weapons in a large building in Aberdeen, Md. Sophisticated machines capable of gathering and counting millions of tiny pieces of dust recorded the data. Researchers with respirators, wearing devices that could also collect the depleted uranium and other dust particles in the air, wiped the vehicles down afterward and examined the insides.

It was the most complete and sophisticated examination of what happens when depleted uranium weapons strike a vehicle, Lt. Col. Mark Melanson says. He manages health physics programs at the Army's public health agency, which commissioned the study.

Using the established government standards for acceptable levels of uranium inhalation and ingestion, the researchers in Capstone found that even under the worst circumstances, people in a tank or Bradley Fighting Vehicle hit by a depleted uranium weapon would incur no significant health risk.

They wouldn't inhale enough for there to be a toxicological danger to their kidneys or other organs, the study says. And the tiny bits that remained in the soldiers' lungs, even the ones that stayed there for years and years, would not be of sufficient quantity to pose a radiological hazard anywhere near as great as smoking cigarettes, it says.

Possible radiological problems from the weapons have been dismissed by many in the military for years.

"The issue is chemical, not radiologic, risk," says Melissa A. McDiarmid of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the VA hospital in Baltimore. McDiarmid directs the government's monitoring of Gulf War veterans with shrapnel in their bodies and has participated in other government-financed research.

McDiarmid says the tiny amount of black depleted uranium dust that a soldier could inhale several hundred feet away from an explosion is inconsequential. Even if particles are inhaled in that scenario, they wouldn't constitute a big enough dose of radiation or toxic chemical to change lives, she says. Fifty years of research based on the experiences of workers in the uranium mining, milling and processing industries prove that scientists have good models to use to compute what is - and isn't - a harmful dose of inhaled uranium, whether it's depleted or not, she says.

CHALLENGING THE MODEL ABOUT HOW RADIATION HARMS

The government standards used in the Capstone Study are based on the research on those occupations and its hazards. Scientists then develop a model of what's safe and unsafe, using computers and theories. Many well-respected scientists say the models are fine but aren't a substitute for testing the models' assumptions out on living creatures or cells. Tests on animals often prove that the models are wrong, they say.

Alexandra Miller is a scientist at the Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute. Miller has spent much of the past 10 years testing whether very small particles of alpha radiation can have lasting and catastrophic effects on cells. She and others around the world are challenging the conventional wisdom that it takes large doses of radiation - either in a single blast or prolonged exposure - to make someone sick or die.

The research on uranium industry workers used to support the argument that depleted uranium dust in battlefield situations isn't a significant hazard is limited, Miller and these scientists say. There are studies that contradict each other, that are poorly done and don't really match up with what troops in the 1991 war experienced, they say.

Their point isn't that the weapons are more dangerous than the military says. They simply say that now is too early to reach a conclusion about safety and that more work needs to be done.

In one recent experiment, Miller exposed human bone cells to alpha particle radiation from depleted uranium and other forms of uranium. Scientists have known for years that when uranium or depleted uranium gets in the body, more of it tends to migrate to the kidneys and bone than any other parts.

Miller says her experiments with the bone cells had two significant findings.

First, she found that the cells went through transformation from normal cells to cancer cells. When those cells were then injected into animals, tumors developed. A genetically similar group of animals used for comparison didn't develop those tumors, she says.

Although the precise cause of cancers isn't known yet, scientists think that these sorts of transformations get the carcinogenic ball rolling, Miller says. The results of that experiment weren't too surprising, she says, though they were important.

The surprise came when she started counting how many cells turned to cancer cells and noticed how far away they were from the source of the radiation.

"BYSTANDER EFFECT" BRINGS UNEXPECTED DAMAGE TO CELLS

Scientists have been working with uranium long enough to be able to say with certainty how much alpha radiation a given piece of uranium or depleted uranium holds. Extremely sensitive devices can measure it.

Scientists therefore think that they can predict in advance how far away the radiation effects can be felt.

But when Miller applied those rules of science to the cells in her laboratory, the rules didn't work. Those same rules underlie the Pentagon's Capstone Study.

"We actually got more damage to chromosomes than we expected, based on the number of alpha particles," she says. "That was the first surprise to me, as a scientist."

Other scientists and other experiments have made similar discoveries. Now they're trying to figure out what it means and why it happens.

Miller says the transformations might result from uranium's toxicity, not its radioactivity. But she suspects that it's a combination of radiation and toxicological effects.

The radiation starts the damage, and the toxicological properties carry it further, she theorizes. The radiation causes another change, and the process is repeated, over and over, until many more cells are altered.

Another possible explanation is that the cells damaged by the initial radiation excrete a hormone or other chemical that spreads to a nearby cell and damages it, Miller says. The damage gets repeated, over and over.

No one is sure of the cause, but scientists do have a name for it: the "bystander effect." That simply means cells, chromosomes and genes that are nearby - but not in the path of actual radiation - are affected.

The effect seems to be more pronounced with alpha radiation, as opposed to the other varieties, Miller says.

"It's actually changed radiobiology dogma in the past four to five years," providing a new look at a hundred years of science, she says.

Whether it will also change what science considers a healthy or unhealthy dose of radiation remains to be seen.

So far, the government agencies and industrial groups that set what are deemed to be safe levels of exposure haven't revamped their standards in light of the bystander effect, Miller says.

Now is probably too early for that, she says, but by the same token, it's too early to say we know enough about depleted uranium to decide what's safe.

When Miller published her first paper on how uranium might damage cells, it was 1998.

She says only two other scientists had published experiments on the topic before that. More work needs to be done, she says. Similarly, Miller says, more work needs to be done on inhalation of depleted uranium, as opposed to ingestion.

When uranium is swallowed, most of it passes immediately through the digestive system and is eliminated in body waste. But when a particle small enough to be inhaled directly lands on lung tissue - with no clothing, paper or outer layers of skin to block the path of the alpha radiation - what happens to that lung tissue?

"We simply don't know," she says. "The body of data out there on uranium is limited."

McDiarmid thinks that we do know enough to reach the conclusion that inhaled depleted uranium isn't a significant radiological danger. And she thinks that the failure to acknowledge this might be hurting ill veterans from the Persian Gulf War.

"What we have here is a witch hunt for an explanation," she says, fed by the public's fear of radiation and fanned by opponents of the weapon and ignorance of the actual science.

"The thing I'm worried about with everybody chasing depleted uranium is that we're missing the boat," she insists.

With so much attention on depleted uranium, other possible causes for the veterans' illnesses go unexplored and the veterans aren't helped.

Her most recent research paper about the veterans with shrapnel in their bodies also points to another risk of pursuing this line of inquiry into depleted uranium, known by scientists and others as "DU."

"Questions regarding the long-term health consequences of these exposures have fueled considerable debate regarding continued use of DU in combat," it says.

If the weapons are proven to create toxic dust that swirls around the desert and contaminates the air in virtual perpetuity, the United States, Great Britain and their allies might be forced to give the weapons up. They might also be forced to spend billions of dollars cleaning the dust up and taking it out of the desert.

Lurking in the background of this scenario is the argument by some antinuclear activists, Iraqi physicians - and the former régime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - that the black dust left behind from the Persian Gulf War caused deformities, cancers and death for thousands of Iraqi children since 1991.

So far, those statements have been buried behind the curtain of Saddam's tyranny, beyond verification by credible groups. Now that Iraq is open to outsiders and run by a friendly interim government, credible medical and scientific experts have started work to figure out whether these stories are propaganda - or the worst sort of bad news.

The United Nations and other organizations recently began financing studies to determine whether the depleted uranium left behind in Iraq and Kuwait in the two wars are linked to health problems in the two countries.

The head of the U.N. effort - Pekka Haavisto, a former Finnish minister of the environment - said this fall that the British government gave his workers information on places where it used depleted uranium weapons but that the U.S. government hadn't.

U.S. military munitions experts say losing depleted uranium from this country's arsenal would be a disaster - and might cost more soldiers' lives in combat than scrapping the weapons might save.

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How Dangerous Is Depleted Uranium?

Some Say Radioactive Arms Cause Gulf War Syndrome

Hearst Newspapers
December 10, 2004

http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/helenthomas/3989401/detail.html

The Pentagon claims that American forces and Iraqis are not at risk from contact with depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing munitions and protective tank plating.

That's baloney to some scientists who insist the widespread use of depleted uranium during the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq poses a grave danger.

Despite attempts to reassure the public, the Pentagon remains on the defensive.

Depleted uranium, or DU, is a radioactive by-product from the industrial process used to enrich uranium. It is the leftover uranium-238 that results when scientists seek to transform naturally occurring uranium into uranium-235, which is used to produce nuclear energy.

The Army values munitions manufactured from depleted uranium because, when fused with metal alloys, they are considered the most effective warhead for penetrating enemy tanks. Also, because depleted uranium is twice as dense as lead, the Army uses DU as armor plating.

Once a depleted-uranium round strikes its target, the projectile begins to burn on impact, creating tiny particles of radioactive U-238. Winds can transport this radioactive dust many miles, potentially contaminating the air that innocent humans breathe.

This inhalation may cause lung cancer, kidney damage, cancers of bones and skin, as well as birth defects and chemical poisoning.

The 1991 Persian Gulf War was the first conflict to see the widespread use of depleted uranium, both in armor-piercing projectiles and in the protective armor of the new generation of Abrams tanks.

Studies by the Pentagon and the National Academy of Sciences established no linkage between DU and the "Gulf War Syndrome" ailments after the first Gulf War.

Some 70 people are still under study for the effects of contact with DU, with particular emphasis on what happens when people breathe the air where DU projectiles have vaporized.

Dr. Helen Caldicott has dedicated her life to warning about the hazards of nuclear war and the effects of DU.

Born in Melbourne, Australia, she first became interested in nuclear hazards when she saw the movie "On the Beach" at the age of 15. The film deals with a nuclear accident that leads to a global nuclear war.

Growing up, she led a movement in Australia against the French atmospheric nuclear tests in the Pacific and tried to win a ban on Australian uranium mining.

She became a medical doctor and later founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also has been a nominee for the same prize. She is a strong, vocal antiwar activist.

In her book, "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex," Caldicott claims that DU qualifies as a nuclear weapon because of its low-level radioactivity. She said that huge quantities of DU were created during the Cold War when the United States made thousands of nuclear weapons.

"Weapon researchers and developers have now succeeded in putting this toxic 'nuclear waste' to use through the creation of depleted uranium bullets and shells," she added. The weapons can cause enormous damage in Iraq, she said. Depleted uranium particles are soluble in water and the waters around the battlefields, as in Iraq and Kuwait, are at risk of radioactive pollution, Caldicott said.

She warned that DU maintains radioactivity for billions of years and can concentrate in the food chain, with children and babies more vulnerable to the carcinogenic effects of ingested radiation than adults.

Medical reports from Iraq indicate that childhood malignancies are seven times more frequent than they were before the first Gulf War.

The complaints of the veterans of the first Gulf War are "surprisingly similar in pattern to the various pathologies induced by uranium exposure as described by the U.S. military," Caldicott said.

Some 50,000 to 80,000 veterans were afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome during that war, and there has been no definitive answer -- but a lot of dispute -- as to the cause.

The military use of depleted uranium is still being questioned. But one thing is certain: War is dangerous to your health.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).

Discuss Helen Thomas' Opinion

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Controlled Press Ignores Criminal Obliteration of Fallujah

American Free Press
Christopher Bollyn
12/12/2004

URL : http://www.anti-imperialism.net/lai/texte.phtml?section=CE&object_id=23321

Medias and disinformation The controlled press has scrupulously avoided discussing the devastation and prima facie evidence of war crimes committed during the U.S. siege and assault of Fallujah.

As Americans prepared for Thanksgiving, an estimated 100,000 residents of the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, trapped in their homes, struggled to survive without fresh food, water or electricity, reportedly cut off by U.S. forces on November 8.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Fallujah, a city of more than 350,000, dogs gnawed on bloated and rotting corpses that remained unburied for weeks.

Thousands of families in Fallujah were reported to be in a critical humanitarian situation after U.S. forces prevented the delivery of relief supplies. An Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) humanitarian aid convoy, reportedly blocked by U.S. troops for more than two weeks, was allowed to deliver aid to residents in the heart of the city on November 25.

On Thanksgiving, U.S. forces permitted the IRCS convoy carrying thousands of food parcels, blankets, tents and medical supplies to enter the city and allowed one of the clinics to be converted into a temporary hospital to treat the injured. Rana Sidani of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland however, told American Free Press on Nov. 30 that "many civilians" were still prevented from receiving aid or medical care.

At the beginning of the U.S. operation in Fallujah on Nov. 5, a hospital in the central Nazzal district of Fallujah was "reduced to rubble" as a result of U.S. air and artillery bombardment. "Only its façade, with a sign reading Nazzal Emergency Hospital, remained intact," Reuters reported.

"A nearby compound used by the main Falluja Hospital to store medical supplies was also destroyed," witnesses told Reuters. Fallujah's main hospital was occupied by U.S. forces when the ground offensive began. These actions are apparent violations of international humanitarian law.

"Bodies can be seen everywhere and people were crying when receiving the food parcels," Muhammad al-Nuri, a spokesman for the IRCS in Baghdad, said. "It is very sad. It is a human disaster."

Al-Nuri said that it is difficult to move in the city due to the large number of dead bodies in the streets. The ICRS estimates there are more than 6,000 dead in Fallujah, al-Nuri said.

AFP asked Major Jay Antonelli at the Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) in Baghdad if the ICRS estimate of 6,000 dead in Fallujah was credible. "We do not keep a count of dead Iraqis," Antonelli said. Asked the same question, the ICRC's Sidani said, "We don't know."

Antonelli said, "U.S. forces never blocked aid convoys from reaching the wounded. We only recommended to the aid convoys that they should not enter the city because the MNF [Multi-National Forces] could not guarantee their security or safety."

"The ICRC is very worried about the humanitarian situation in Falluja," Sidani said. Asked what the ICRC was doing to alleviate the suffering in Fallujah, Sidani said: "We are reminding the parties of their responsibilities under international humanitarian law."

It should be noted that the U.S.A. and Britain, the belligerent occupying powers in Iraq, are the two largest contributors to the ICRC, providing more than 42 percent of its budget for field operations.

A second convoy from Baghdad, headed by Dr. Said Ismael Haki, the IRCS president, delivered aid to Fallujah on Nov. 26. "There are no houses left in Fallujah, only destroyed places." Haki said. "I really don't know how the people will return to the city. No one will find their homes."

As U.S. troops in Fallujah engaged in what has been described as the most intense urban combat since Vietnam, the controlled press scrupulously avoided discussion or footage of the devastation of the rebellious Sunni city. For example, during the second week of the attack, rather than discuss the widespread devastation of Fallujah, U.S. television news programs focused largely on a brawl between basketball players and fans in Detroit.

Lt. Col. Brandl, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, was filmed giving a "pep talk" to his marines: "The enemy has got a face – he's called Satan," Brandl said. "He's in Fallujah, and we're going to destroy him."

At least 136 U.S. soldiers were killed during November in Iraq, and more than 800 were wounded, most of them in Fallujah, making it the most costly month, and operation, in terms of U.S. lives lost since the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003.

FOR WHAT CAUSE?

Michael Ware, Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, who has been in Fallujah during the fighting, said U.S. actions in Fallujah are "creating the nightmare that we are seeking to prevent."

"I stood there as I saw American boys die," Ware told Chris Matthews of MSNBC on Nov. 24, "I mean, a man shot at close range, blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade. He dies there in front of you and I can't help but think why? For what cause?

"I see us creating the very thing that the president said we went there to prevent," Ware said, "…subsequent to this invasion and the occupation and the guerrilla war that is currently underway, we are the midwives of the next generation of al Qaida and Islamic terrorist."

Ware, who has interviewed senior insurgent leaders, said they study the writings of the Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong. "They're bringing it straight from the Vietnam, and the broader insurgency playbook," Ware said.

"The name of the game is deny the population to the insurgents," Ware said. "That's what we're trying to do, win hearts and minds. But we're not winning them."

The U.S. struggle to win Iraqi hearts and minds suffered a further set back when NBC TV broadcast footage of a U.S. marine executing a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. The much-publicized shooting, apparently part of a massacre of a group of wounded resistance fighters, "was a rare crack in the façade that Washington, with the complicity of most of the corporate media, has tried to present to the world of its brutal assault on the rebel Iraqi city," Rohan Pearce wrote in The Greenleft Weekly Australia on Nov. 24.

The New York Times has reported actions taken by U.S. forces in Fallujah, which appear to be prima facie evidence of war crimes, without mentioning that the actions constitute clear violations of the Laws of Land War found in the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10.

For example, a Nov. 20 Times article by Edward Wong, with two correspondents in Fallujah, reports that U.S. marines had transformed a mosque into a fortress with snipers and machine gunners perched on the roof.

Then, using the passive form, Wong goes on to say that "no neutral group has been able to enter the city," without mentioning that U.S. forces blocked humanitarian aid convoys. Likewise, Wong wrote, "Electricity and water had been cut off."

The Times, whose motto is "All the news that's fit to print," apparently didn't think that it's readers needed to know the U.S. forces had cut off the water and power to a city of 340,000 people.

Asked if U.S. forces had cut power and water to Fallujah, Maj. Jay Antonelli of CPIC wrote: "MNF did, with approval of the Interim Iraqi Government, cut off electricity to the city of Fallujah as Operation Al-Fajr began. Water was not cut off intentionally, however the water system did sustain some kinetic damage during strikes."

American Free Press asked the Pentagon's Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa if it is true that U.S. forces were using mosques as fortresses. "It's not possible," Yoswa said. "Under no circumstances. We would not set up snipers in a mosque in an offensive position."

CPIC's Antonelli said: "MNF would not use a mosque as a 'fortress.' MNF and Iraqi security forces would only fire from a mosque if they were being fired upon and were firing back in self-defense."

Abu Sabah, a refugee from Fallujah, reported seeing phosphorus bombs: "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fell from the air with long tails of smoke trailing behind them. These exploded on the ground with large fires that burnt for half and hour," Abu Sabah said. "When anyone touched these fires their bodies burnt for hours."

Eyewitnesses from Fallujah also reported seeing "melted" bodies.

"THROW-AWAY SOLDIERS"

Having seen what appeared to be a depleted uranium (DU) missile fired at a building in Fallujah on CNN during the first week of the fighting, AFP asked the Pentagon if DU weapons are being used in Fallujah. "Yes," Yoswa said, "DU is a standard round on the M-1 Abrams tank."

Because U.S. marines in Fallujah are very close to the poison gas produced by exploded DU shells, AFP asked Yoswa if anything was being done to protect the troops from DU poisoning. Yoswa seemed unaware of the dangers posed by the use of DU.

Marion Fulk, a retired nuclear scientist from Livermore National Lab told AFP that U.S. troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw-away soldiers." The Marines exposed to DU in Fallujah, and elsewhere, face greatly increased risks of cancer, deformed children, and other health problems in the future.

OBLITERATION OF FALLUJAH

The "obliteration of Fallujah" is a serious war crime, according to Francis A. Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois. "The obliteration of Fallujah continues apace," Boyle wrote in his Nov. 15 article, A War Crime in Real Time: Obliterating Fallujah. "Article 6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines a Nuremberg War Crime in relevant part as the 'wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages.' According to this definitive definition, the Bush administration's destruction of Fallujah constitutes a war crime for which Nazis were tried and executed." 

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Throw Away Soldiers & Disposable Civilians

Vive le Canada
December 12 2004

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/2004121214584783

World Tribunal for Iraq

The records have to be kept and, by definition, the perpetrators, far from keeping records, try to destroy them. They are killers of the innocent and of memory. The records are required to inspire still further the mounting opposition to the new global tyranny.

The new tyrants, incomparably over-armed, can win every war - both military and economic. Yet they are losing the war (this is how they call it) of communication. They are not winning the support of world public opinion . More and more people are saying NO.

Finally this will be the tyranny's undoing. But after how many more tragedies, invasions and collateral disasters? After how much more of the new poverty the tyranny engenders? Hence the urgency of keeping records, of remembering, of assembling the evidence, so that the accusations become unforgettable, and proverbial on every continent.

More and more people are going to say NO, for this is the precondition today for saying YES to all we are determined to save and everything we love. John Berger, 18.06.2003, Paris - Mieussy World Tribunal

Premeditated Death and Destruction Unleashed Against a Sovereign Nation and People by Niloufer Bhagwat

Opening statement before the Iraq tribunal hearings at Tokyo, 11 Dec 2004 Honorable Judges , Prosecutors , Amici Curiae , witnesses of the satanic death and destruction of the people of Iraq , of homes and livelihood , of hospitals , schools and places of worship; concerned citizens of Japan .

We live in strange times. For even as a war rages fiercely in Iraq which in epic terms can be compared to a "Mahabharat" , a fierce war between the forces of right and wrong , justice and injustice , occupation and national liberation ; we resume this trial in the dark shadows of an "Apocalypse" which is the continuing military occupation and the reduction of the entire population of Iraq into the inmates of a vast concentration camp unmonitored even by the Red Cross and other UN and other International humanitarian organizations. Unprecedented in the annals of legal history, evidence is being recorded in this trial even as crimes continue to be committed with impunity, bringing home to us the reality of human existence, that words are never enough to defeat a brutal tyranny and even those of us who use words as tools are speechless in the face of the deliberate and premeditated death and destruction unleashed against a sovereign nation and people ,a member state of the United Nations waged solely to capture its oil resources and with that objective to subjugate and eliminate its population through one strategy or another.

Millions of people in the world including in the United States , even before the aggression and military occupation commenced , much before we commenced our slow and painstaking examination of evidence and precedents , sensing imminent and unprecedented danger to the peoples of the entire world including to soldiers recruited to defend Republics and parliamentary democracies proceeded to pronounce their verdict against the doctrine of "continuous war " against one nation or another ;against the conversion of domestic economies into "war economies" even as thousands and thereafter millions were rendered unemployed .The people across continents opposed the policy of "blood for oil" and declared their rejection of this strategy of pre-emptive war for the control of resources of other societies and nations .

The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War had estimated before the military onslaught that a fresh attack against Iraq would result in the deaths of anywhere between 48,000 to 260,000 Iraqi citizens and that post-war effects could take the lives of an additional 200,000 Iraqis excluding those killed in the 1991 attack on Iraq and those dead because of illegal sanctions imposed on the civilian population of Iraq by the Security Council and issue which I had dealt with in detail at Kyoto, quoting extensively from the statements of Mr. Dennis Halliday a former International Civil Servant of rare integrity who had resigned on the issues of sanctions claiming that it amounted to an illegal declaration of war on the civilian population.

Now in the 19 month of the occupation by the military forces mainly drawn from the United States and UK along with other smaller contingents all members of the coalition of the aggressors ; Lancet Online Medical Journal based in the UK has published a study by American health experts and researchers at the John Hopkins School of Public Health, Columbia University and al Mustansiriya University Baghdad on the deaths of Iraqi civilians under the military occupation. The study confirms that : " Violent deaths were widespread….and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children…"

The report went on to say that: "Making conservative assumptions , we think that about 100,000 excess deaths , or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes of coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths."

Les Roberts and Gilbert Burnham who collaborated on the research published informed the media that they had evidence of the use of air power in populated urban areas. Richard Horton editor of the Lancet in an editorial emphasized that the "findings also raise questions for those far removed from Iraq – in the governments of the countries responsible for launching a pre –emptive war". The mounting evidence of the human catastrophe in Iraq not seen since the days of the Second World War prima facie indicates that the death toll may be more but not less than 100,000 and even the Lancet report however sincere has underestimated the death toll from all facets of the Occupation.

In assessing the extent of Genocide it is necessary to focus on the destruction and attack on hospitals and health clinics to deny medical relief to those who could be saved if the Iraqi health service was not destroyed . This strategy was visible in the policy of organized looting and destruction of Iraqi hospitals in the weeks and months after the attack .The deliberate bombing of water pipes, the cutting off of water supplies to cities and town under siege by US, UK and other forces , destruction of sewage pipes and sanitary facilities , of electricity and heating have condemned millions in Iraq to consume contaminated water and food ,as a consequence the old, the feeble, and the children have been dying of diarrhea and related diseases caused by contamination of food and water with lack of medicines and health care leading to an increase in mortality. This is an indicator that apart from death by violence the Occupation has condemned people to death from malnutrition and lack of food , and water and food borne diseases with inadequate health care directly caused by the Occupation .

The intrepid reporter Dahr Jamail reporting for a weekly in Alaska has disclosed that from what he had seen in six months in Iraq at close quarters , it was difficult to find any family in Iraq who had not had a member killed on account of the conditions arising from the Occupation. And what of the heroic city of Fallujah which dared to resist the mercenaries of US and UK Security Companies and Agencies, who have no combatant status under the Geneva Convention in any armed conflict , yet are to-day high profile in one war after another in Bosnia, in Kosovo , in Afghanistan and other theatres including in the trafficking in human beings as slaves .On 14th October 2004 sensing that the city of 300,000 was to be singled out for destruction as it had become a symbol of Resistance against the Occupation ; the people of Fallujah through several organizations of Teachers, Tribal Leaders, the Shura Council , the Bar Association, through the President of the Study Centre of Human Rights and Democracy forwarded an urgent appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations in these words:

" Your Excellency, It is obvious that the American forces are committing crimes of genocide every day in Iraq .Now while we are writing to Your Excellency , the American warplanes are dropping their most powerful bombs on the civilians in the city , killing and injuring hundreds of innocent people . At the same time their tanks are attacking the city with their heavy artillery…" "On the night of 13th October alone American bombardment demolished 50 houses on top of their residents. Is this a genocidal crime or a lesson about democracy? It is obvious that the Americans are committing acts of terror against the people of Fallujah for one reason only : their refusal to accept the Occupation."

"Your Excellency and the whole world knows that the Americans and their allies devastated our country under the pretext of the threat of the Weapons of Mass Destruction .Now after the destruction and the killing of thousands of civilians , they have admitted that there were no weapons found .But they say nothing about all the crimes they have committed .Unfortunately everyone is now silent and will not dignify the murdered Iraqi civilians with words of condemnation .Are the Americans going to pay compensation as Iraq has been forced to do after the Gulf War……."

" We know we are living in a world of double standards .In Fallujah , they have created a new vague target: AL ZARQAWI. This is a new pretext to justify their crimes, killing and daily bombardment of civilians. Almost a year has passed since they created this new pretext and whenever they destroy houses ….they said ‘We have launched a successful operation against AL Zarqawi. hey will never say that they have killed him because there is no such person. And that means the daily killings of civilians and the daily genocide will continue."

"At the same time the representatives of Fallujah , our tribal leader has denounced on many occasions the kidnapping and killing of civilians , and we have no links to any group committing such inhuman behaviour." " Excellency , we appeal to you and to all the world leaders to exert the greatest pressure on the American administration to stop the crimes in Fallujah and withdraw their army….the city was quiet and peaceful when its people ran it ….We simply did not welcome the Occupation. This is our right according to the UN Charter , International Law and the laws of humanity. If the Americans believe in the opposite they should first withdraw from the UN and all its agencies before acting in a way contrary to the Charter they have signed"

" It is very urgent that your Excellency along with the world leaders, intervenes in a speedy manner to prevent a new massacre…." This was the voice of the people of Fallujah appealing to the UN and to world leaders and what was the response? After the administration of the United States had taken care of the African-American voters and others through the Diebold electronic voting machines on the 8th November commenced the destruction of Fallujah which to the United States was a symbol of Iraqi resistance throughout the world. There is hardly a home intact in the city of Fallujah. The first attack by US forces with the Black Watch Regiments poised on the highways , was on the Fallujah hospitals and medical personnel who report the casualty figures and treat the wounded the messengers of the devastation and loss of lives .Dr Khamis al-Muhammadi of the Fallujan General Hospital has informed the media that she was seized and taken away by Occupation forces even as she was about to cut an unbilical cord during child birth; several doctors have been reported to have been killed and all hospitals and clinics destroyed. AL ZARQAWI like BIN LADEN was never captured despite the destruction of the entire city. Yet who can destroy the spirit of Fallujah which has survived many attempts of a whole century to crush it.

Even as use of Depleted Uranium , of napalm, of banned chemicals spread throughout the world , Mr . Kofi Anan reacted to the appeal of Fallujah and pronounced what had already been known to millions that : "The Occupation of Iraq is illegal…" with the Japan Times subsequently reporting that the Secretary General of the United Nations would pay the price for this statement with calls for his resignation despite past services rendered and though the real price for the fraudulently conceived ‘FOOD FOR OIL’ program vests with the Security Council and the entire policy and its implementation was illegal as it sought to impose control over the resources of anther sovereign country to regulate production and distribution of Oil.

With the war declared categorically illegal even by the Secretary General of the United Nations , on what basis does the US administration plan to increase troop levels .Why has it concealed from the world that it has already created four military bases in Iraq with the objective of permanent occupation . And what is the nature of the liberation of Iraq. Dahr Jamail reports that Baghdad after 19 months remains in shambles bombed out buildings sit as insulting reminders of unbroken promises of reconstruction 70 % of Iraqis at the very minimum are unemployed and there is a five mile petrol lines in an oil rich country.Engineers and doctors are unemployed and ply taxis .there are mass graves of innocent civilians in Fallujah and bodies with skins melted by napalm .bodies bloated and rotting devoured by dogs in the street after the complete destruction of the city of Fallujah water supply is frequently cut off from cities and towns targeted for attack children lie deformed by Depleted Uranium exposure in shattered hospitals from lack of treatment or even pain medication the Iraqi Red Crescent, other relief teams and the Red Cross has been obstructed in rendering aid mosques are bullet ridden with blood stained carpets."

Even as governments and heads of State continue to deal with war criminals we must recall that the assault on Fallujah and other cities , towns and villages of Iraq are covered by article 6 (b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter and in the trials of the Far East or Tokyo trials among the war crimes defined include the" Wanton destruction of cities , towns or villages " crimes for which the Nazi leaders and other Generals and militarists were tried and executed .The acts perpetrated by US,UK forces in the onslaught on Fallujah constitutes a clear violation of the laws of Land War found in the US army Field Manual 27-10. What of the US, UK soldiers used as one half of the poor to kill the other half ;recruited from working class families from isolated and marginalized communities and towns affected by the economic recession and the downturn sweeping the United States and England with employment opportunities steadily decreasing. Christian Bollyn of the American Free Press , Washington D.C asked Lt.Col. Joe Yoswa if the US was using Depleted Uranium in Fallujah and received the reply that " DU is the standard round on the M-1 Abraham Tanks" which have been used in Fallujah. Because of the nature of poison gas exploded by the exploded DU shells, American Free Press asked Yoswa if the troops were protected from DU poisoning .Lt.Col. Joe Yoswa seemed unaware of the dangers posed by DU. Marion Falk a retired Nuclear scientist from Livermore Lab informed the media that US troops in DU contaminated battlefields are considered "throw away soldiers" who are dispensed with once exposed , and replaced by others who become throw away in their turn with risks of cancer ,deformed children from genetic damage and serious health problems. There is no higher purpose to fulfil for the "throw away soldiers" than the war and oil profits of the Corporations at stake from the continued occupation and the fear and unemployment at home; the bankrupting of the US economy are two sides of the same coin of which one side is the Occupation and the other side is the whipping up of fear and frenzy in the United States. Uranium Weapons

There is a direct connection between the appropriation sought for the war at the cost of sweeping budget cuts and the steady elimination of social security funds and post office savings .There is also a direct connection between the nature of elections held in the United States , in Kabul where Mr.Hamid Karzai the representative of the UNOCAL Company cannot stir out of Kabul , and the elections proposed to be held in Iraq under conditions of Occupation and coercion .

In all three countries the strategy is the same ; coerce the electorate and declare an election as "won" after which without a constitutional mandate enslave the majority of the people by obfuscating political ,economic and social rights reducing countries to garrisons .In recognition of these similarities and the impact of the illegal war on the people of the United States that the anti-war coalition has supported the "absolute right of the people of Iraq to resist the occupation of their country" and declared their own resistance to re-instate the draft and to prepare for resistance if conscription returns. In what has far reaching consequences for International Security the movement has declared that "it is incumbent on us to reject that notion that smaller countries must disarm and leave themselves defenseless at the demand of Bush and the Pentagon. Such demands are not only hypocritical , irrational and unjust , they amount to little more than a pretext for more invasions and occupations " . In the context of the fact that the resistance to the Iraq war has more than one front with the the military front in Iraq and the political front in the Americas it is necessary in view of the Security Council having acquiesced to the Occupation despite the fact that it is illegal that the General Assembly should be moved by a member of the United Nations to initiate moves for the vacating of the aggression against Iraq under Article 35 read with article 11 (2 ) . Any organization in which some powers have the hegemony of the veto can never fulfill the requirements of a new democratic international order .

Prof. Niloufer Bhagwat

11 December, 2004 At Tokyo This article was posted at Crimes and Corruptions of the New World Order News



-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan, India to discuss agreement on missile tests next week

AFP Dec 12, 2004
	
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1535&ncid=731&e=9&u=/afp/20041212/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanindianucleartalks

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India are due to meet in Islamabad next week to discuss a possible agreement on giving advance notice to each other before conducting missile tests, foreign ministry spokesman said.

The expert-level talks on confidence building measures (CBMs) will be held December 14-15 in Islamabad, foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan told AFP.

Pakistani and Indian officials would also discuss setting up a hotline between top foreign ministry civil servants to avoid the possibility of nuclear conflict because of any mishap or misunderstanding, Khan said.

They already have a hotline between senior military commanders, who have conversations scheduled once a week.

Pakistan and India held nuclear tests two weeks apart in 1998 and have since come close to war twice in their dispute over Kashmir (news - web sites).

The two sides have been conducting periodic missile tests throughout a peace dialogue which has been underway since January.

Though an informal agreement about prior notification of missile tests exists between the two South Asian neighbours, the meeting is expected to finalise the draft of a formal agreement, Khan said.

Khan said the meeting would help improve communications between the two sides.

The talks are aimed at establishing "strategic stability" in the region that constitutes nuclear and missile restraint, conventional balance and conflict resolution, Khan said.

"We covered some ground in June this year in New Delhi and we want to build on this momentum and elaborate some concrete CBMs," Khan said.

The first round of talks on nuclear issues was held in the Indian capital New Delhi in June where both reiterated a 1999 agreement that neither country would conduct another nuclear test "unless, in exercise of national sovereignty, it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised its supreme interests."

-------- 

Pakistan, India to discuss agreement on missile tests next week

ISLAMABAD (AFP)
Dec 12, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041212113548.h8s45o2u.html

Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India are due to meet in Islamabad next week to discuss a possible agreement on giving advance notice to each other before conducting missile tests, foreign ministry spokesman said Sunday.

The expert-level talks on confidence building measures (CBMs) will be held December 14-15 in Islamabad, foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan told AFP.

Pakistani and Indian officials would also discuss setting up a hotline between top foreign ministry civil servants to avoid the possibility of nuclear conflict because of any mishap or misunderstanding, Khan said.

They already have a hotline between senior military commanders, who have conversations scheduled once a week.

Pakistan and India held nuclear tests two weeks apart in 1998 and have since come close to war twice in their dispute over Kashmir.

The two sides have been conducting periodic missile tests throughout a peace dialogue which has been underway since January.

Though an informal agreement about prior notification of missile tests exists between the two South Asian neighbours, the meeting is expected to finalise the draft of a formal agreement, Khan said.

Khan said the meeting would help improve communications between the two sides.

The talks are aimed at establishing "strategic stability" in the region that constitutes nuclear and missile restraint, conventional balance and conflict resolution, Khan said.

"We covered some ground in June this year in New Delhi and we want to build on this momentum and elaborate some concrete CBMs," Khan said.

The first round of talks on nuclear issues was held in the Indian capital New Delhi in June where both reiterated a 1999 agreement that neither country would conduct another nuclear test "unless, in exercise of national sovereignty, it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised its supreme interests."


-------- iran

'The Persian Puzzle': Misjudging Iran

December 12, 2004
By ERNEST R. MAY
The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/books/review/12MAYL.html?pagewanted=print&position=

WHEN ''The Threatening Storm'' came out in 2002, it caused a sensation. The author, a Brookings Institution scholar who had been a Central Intelligence Agency analyst and the director of Persian Gulf affairs on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff, offered a measured and thoughtful argument paralleling that of hard-liners in the administration of President George W. Bush. The subtitle of the book was ''The Case for Invading Iraq.''

''The Persian Puzzle'' deals with the other big country in Kenneth Pollack's portfolio: Iran. To the question is it, too, a brief for pre-emptive war, the answer is a qualified ''no.'' Pollack (who, for the record, now says he made a mistake about Iraq, based on faulty intelligence) sees more cons than pros to a war with Iran -- too many Iranians, too many mountains, too many potential guerrillas and too many possibilities for trouble elsewhere. He finds more of a case for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, like Israel's 1981 bombing of the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak, but here too he sees more cons than pros. He recommends that the United States cope with the challenges posed by Iran by forming a tight combination with other nations and presenting Tehran with really big carrots and sticks, mostly economic.

But ''The Persian Puzzle'' is most rewarding when it deals with the past, not the future. Many Americans were surprised to learn from the recent report of Charles Duelfer, the chief American weapons inspector in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had pretended to have weapons of mass destruction because he was preoccupied with deterring Iran. Pollack reminds us again and again how often American assumptions about Iranian concerns were wrong.

The pivot of Pollack's narrative is the C.I.A.-sponsored 1953 coup that unseated the demagogic reformer Mohammed Mossadegh and entrenched young Mohammed Reza Shah. The coup created among Iranians a lasting belief that the United States not only wanted to but could control Iranian politics. Early on, Pollack quotes Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's 2000 St. Patrick's Day speech expressing regret at the ''setback for Iran's political development.'' He returns to it toward the end of the book, insisting that, however small the immediate result, confession of past errors is the starting point for avoiding future mistakes.

The Americans who engineered the 1953 coup understood neither Mossadegh nor the shah. Mossadegh believed that the United States thought Iran vitally important and that he could win concessions from Washington by appearing willing to bargain with the Soviet Union -- making him look, to American eyes, like Moscow's cat's-paw. The shah saw himself as totally dependent on the United States yet so necessary to it that he could squeeze Washington like a protection racketeer -- and he did, most clearly in 1973, when he prodded OPEC into its most extravagant price gouging. (''The shah turned around and screwed us,'' Robert Hormats, then at the National Security Council, has been quoted as saying.) The shah's sense of dependency was most nakedly visible in his last days, when he considered trying bloody all-out suppression of the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamist revolution but told the American ambassador that he could not take such action except on orders from Washington -- orders that President Jimmy Carter refused to give. Pollack is unsparing in his criticism of Carter administration policy making; hard-liners and soft-liners, he says, were both ''operating under completely false assumptions.''

The litany of mutual misjudgments continues through chapters on Ayatollah Khomeini's rule, the hauling and tugging between theocrats and secular Westernizers that followed and the recent past, when, as Pollack sees it, the theocrats solidified control by following the Chinese model -- trading some social liberalization for surrender of all political power. Khomeini is said not only to have blessed taking the embassy hostages but to have held on to them with the specific aim of costing Carter votes in 1980 -- as a payback for 1953.

The title of Chapter 7, ''At War With the World,'' captures the essential thread of the 1980's. Iran was at war with Iraq. At the same time it was building up Hezbollah and supervising plans for attacks like the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. The internal struggles within the Reagan administration and the Iran-contra scandal may be highest on the register of American mistakes. The decision to put marines in Lebanon, Pollack writes, ''was a disaster for U.S. policy toward the region, and it was a disaster for U.S. policy toward Iran. It was a mistake to have intervened in Lebanon at all.'' Of Iran-contra he comments, ''Congress had denied the administration funding for the C.I.A. program to support the contras, but the N.S.C. and C.I.A. had found a way to tie one harebrained scheme to the other.''

Not surprisingly, Pollack's view of the Clinton administration is more sympathetic. He gives Clinton's tough talking credit for Iran's pullback from anti-American terrorism after the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. (Perhaps because of censors at the C.I.A. or N.S.C., he doesn't discuss the 9/11 commission's evidence that Iran facilitated the travel of the Saudis who were 9/11 muscle men.) Still, he concedes that the Clinton-era gestures came to naught. The hopes Pollack invests in his own recommendations seem to rest primarily on Tehran's pragmatic cooperation immediately after 9/11 and during the military campaign against the Taliban.

For a background understanding of U.S.-Iranian relations, ''The Persian Puzzle'' is matchless. No one newly appointed to the second Bush administration will have time to read it, but every young person who wants to work in the national security apparatus should memorize it. Pollack says he started this book before an editor diverted him to writing a book on Iraq. That was a shame. If it had been the other way around, ''The Threatening Storm'' might have had a more cautionary thesis.

Ernest R. May, a professor of history at Harvard, was senior adviser to the 9/11 commission. His most recent book is ''Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France.''

-----

Iran warns it will quit nuclear talks with EU if no progress made

TEHRAN (AFP)
Dec 12, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041212084242.78khejdu.html

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani warned Sunday that the Islamic republic would abandon key talks with the European Union on its nuclear programme if it was clear no progress was being made.

The talks, set to begin in Brussels on Monday, are aimed at building on Iran's agreement to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment activities that have sparked fears the clerical regime is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

The two sides will be hammering out a long-term accord that includes "objective guarantees" Iran will not develop the bomb and a package of trade, technology and security incentives.

"We will continue the negotiations for as long as they are progressing," Rowhani told the official news agency IRNA before leaving for the Brussels talks.

"If at any point that our negotiations are not progressing, we will stop them. The end of these three months of negotiations will indicate to us which point we have reached," added the cleric, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Iran has pledged to maintain its nuclear fuel cycle freeze for the duration of the negotiations.

On Monday, Rowhani is to meet the British, French and German foreign ministers in a steering committee conference on the sidelines of an EU ministerial gathering.

--------

The U.S. vs. a Nuclear Iran

The New York Times Company
By DAVID E. SANGER
December 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/politics/12nuke.html

This article was reported by Thom Shanker, Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, and was written by Mr. Sanger.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - The Bush administration says the prospect of Iran's obtaining a nuclear weapon is "intolerable," and from the White House to the State Department, officials express considerable skepticism that Europe's efforts to negotiate quietly an end to Iran's nuclear activities will succeed.

Yet, though President Bush threatened Iraq before the war there, he has said almost nothing about the possibility of resorting to military action in Iran.

That may reflect the fact that Pentagon war planners, reviewing available options, say there are no good options for Mr. Bush - or for Israel, which has expressed even greater alarm about a nuclear-armed Iran if negotiations fail.

Almost unanimously, these planners and Pentagon analysts say there are no effective military ways to wipe out a nuclear program that has been well hidden and broadly dispersed across the country, including in crowded cities. Confronted with intelligence evidence, Iran admitted to inspectors last year that it had hidden critical aspects of its civilian program for 18 years, and even today there are questions about whether all of its nuclear-related sites are known.

The Bush administration has talked about the possibility of going to the United Nations to seek sanctions against Iran if a recent accord with the Europeans falls apart, as a similar agreement did last year. But the Iranians themselves are aware of the whispers about military strikes, many of them fueled by Israeli officials who view the threat as much more urgent than the Europeans do.

Even so, such talk may amount to little more than bluffing in a high-stakes diplomatic game that the deputy secretary of state, Richard L. Armitage, recently described as "kind of a good-cop, bad-cop arrangement," with Washington playing the bad cop. But a senior European official related a conversation in which Iranians deeply involved in the talks warned that any military action would be futile.

The official said the Iranians boasted that "they can rebuild the facilities in six months," using indigenous technology. He also said they believed that after any military action to slow Iran's program, they could "develop a weapon as a national cause, with more consensus than now."

Senior officers and Pentagon officials confirm that war planners, in particular Air Force targeting teams, have updated contingencies for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, as they periodically do. But they immediately emphasize that this does not reflect any guidance from the civilian leadership to prepare for military confrontation.

Instead, they say, it is part of an effort ordered by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to begin a constant process of refreshing contingency planning throughout the world, an effort partly inspired by the outdated plan for invading Iraq that had to be rapidly dusted off and radically rewritten before the war there.

"Military planning always continues," said one senior officer based in the Middle East. "We are constantly updating plans."

But interviews with military planners, Pentagon policy makers and academic experts drew a unanimous sentiment that the challenge in 2005 would be to contain the situation so that neither the United States nor Iran took a misstep or miscalculated, bringing on military action.

The Iranians remember Osirak, the site of a lightning Israeli airstrike against an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 that set back Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions by a decade. American and European intelligence officials say Iran has taken the lesson to heart, spreading its nuclear facilities around the country, burying some underground and putting others in the middle of crowded urban areas.

For example, the International Atomic Energy Agency last year found centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium, behind a false wall at the Kalaye Electric Company in a densely populated corner of Tehran, where there would be no way to conduct a military strike without causing major civilian casualties. "They are not about to make the same mistake Saddam did," a senior administration official said.

Thus the military options range from the bad to the unimaginable.

None guarantee success, military planners say. Many risk causing not only casualties but a political crisis in the Middle East. The planners, many of them involved in the war against Iraq, argue vehemently that Iran presents a growing proliferation problem better approached through diplomatic channels than by airstrikes, Special Operations missions or an all-out invasion.

"There's no big war plan on the shelf," said one administration official involved in the planning process. 

Part of the caution appears linked to the realization that while Iran's nuclear facilities are far more advanced than Iraq's ever were, the administration has yet to prove that Iran is secretly planning to build a weapon. The country has opened many of its sites to international inspectors, though there is still wrangling over whether the agency will be able to visit two military sites that some experts suspect could house a parallel, secret military effort to produce uranium.

If such sites exist, they would violate the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which Iran has signed and which requires that all of its facilities must be solely for civilian use. So far, the inspectors have asked to see only one of the sites, and Iran has not indicated whether it would provide access.

The director general of the international agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has carefully stopped short of declaring that Iran is seeking a weapon, though recently he noted that Iran "tried to cheat the system."

But whether it is a civilian program or something more nefarious, Iran is using an approach to developing nuclear fuel through the enrichment of uranium that is far easier to hide than the approach that Iraq took two decades ago.

So there is no central plant like Osirak to bomb.

"Osirak is not a paradigm," said Robert S. Litwak, director of international studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center here. "It was an exceptional case, in which all of the conditions for success came together. Israel had accurate intelligence on the target, collateral damage effects on the nearby population were judged minimal because the nuclear core had not yet been loaded into the reactor, and Saddam Hussein then had no capacity to retaliate directly against Israel."

In Iran today, said Mr. Litwak, who worked on proliferation issues as a National Security Council staff member in the Clinton administration, "none of those conditions pertain."

That view is echoed at the senior levels of the military. "Iran takes great care to protect its technology and production/storage capability with multiple layers of security, hardening and dispersal," said one Air Force general with experience in the Middle East. "All this complicates identification, targeting and execution."

Analysts of the Iranian political scene also point out that many in the American government view a growing and energized Iranian civil society, in particular the young and women, as an agent of change toward a democratic Iran.

News of the energy agency's restrained action helped Iran's stock market, which had suffered over fears that the nuclear dispute could result in a military confrontation with Israel or the United States. Any American military strike on Iran, these analysts say, would cancel any positive feelings these people have toward the United States, and probably galvanize support for the more militant Islamic leadership.



-------- japan

Japanese govt to act on aging nuclear power plants

Yomiuri Shimbun

2004-12-12

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20041212wo02.htm

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a nuclear safety regulator under the jurisdiction of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, will establish Monday a special section to take measures to ensure the safety of aging nuclear power plants.

The plants, which have been operating for more than 30 years, are being targeted as part of efforts to strengthen safety measures to prevent accidents.

Also as part of these efforts, the NISA will Thursday establish an advisory panel of experts.

The agency was prompted to act by a steam blowout at the No. 3 reactor of the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Mihamacho, Fukui Prefecture. The accident in August at the Kansai Electric Power Co.-run plant killed five workers and injured six others.

The new measures herald a change in NISA policy, which previously was totally dependent on electric power firms to ensure safety measures at nuclear power facilities.

Fukui Gov. Kazumi Nishikawa has strongly urged the NISA to strengthen safety measures for old nuclear power plants. He claimed that the steam blowout was a result of a failure to act against the deterioration of the plants.

To date, the NISA has urged electric power firms to assess the safety of equipment at nuclear power plants after 30 years of operation, and to map out maintenance and inspection plans. But there is criticism of the plans' contents and feasibility.

The special section will start with five employees and increase in size depending on the situation. It will aim to survey accidents and problems caused by deteriorating nuclear power plants and formalize preventive measures against problems. It also will make public the contents of the preventive measures and enhance the transparency of the inspection procedures.

The advisory panel of experts--to meet for the first time in Fukui on Thursday--will be set up under the nuclear safety and security division of the advisory committee for natural resources and energy, a consultative organ to the METI minister.

===

JCO opens plant to public

MITO--JCO Co. opened its nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, to residents Saturday for the first time since a fatal nuclear accident occurred at the plant in September 1999.

The event was organized by the Tokaimura village government to ensure the fatal incident is always remembered, village government officials said.

Later this month, the village government is expected to approve the removal of equipment from the former uranium reprocessing building at the plant on the condition that the pieces can be reassembled.

The stainless steel sedimentation tank in which the accident occurred on Sept. 30, 1999, has remained in the building next to solution and storage towers. Readings of 70 to 80 microsieverts--a measure of radiation--have been detected inside the tank. 

-----

Site of nuclear accident opened to tours

(Kyodo)

Dec. 12, 2004

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041212a7.htm

MITO, Ibaraki Pref.  JCO Co. opened its nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Saturday to local residents for the first time since a fatal accident in 1999, which killed two workers and exposed more than 660 nearby residents to radiation.

About 160 people have signed up for tours of the facility. JCO said it will conduct the tours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day through Thursday.

The Tokai Municipal Government plans to dismantle a processing tank and other parts of the facility and store them in drums for future restoration.

The village plans to create a life-size model of the facility for a future exhibition using 50 million yen from the national government.

The accident occurred at 10:35 a.m. Sept. 30, 1999, when two JCO employees poured too much uranium into a processing tank -- bypassing several required steps -- and caused a nuclear fission chain reaction.

The two employees were exposed to massive doses of radiation and later died from multiple organ failure.



-------- korea

Washington's Nuclear Tunnel Vision
	
Korea Times 12-12-2004
By Mike Weisbart

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200412/kt2004121215363854190.htm

The United States is walking out of step with its partners in the six-party talks. It’s focusing on the wrong issues and, potentially with the gravest of consequences, is having difficulty seeing the forest for the trees.

That’s the thrust of a new report by the Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy, chaired by long-time Korea hand Selig Harrison and cosponsored by the Center for International Policy and the University of Chicago’s Center for East Asian Studies.

The task force’s key recommendation is that the Bush administration should stop concentrating on the what-ifs and maybes of the alleged possession by North Korea of a highly enriched uranium program and begin to negotiate with the North on the basis of providing incentives for a complete and verifiable freeze and the ultimate removal of the very real threat embodied in the country’s well-documented plutonium program.

The plan would involve a multiphase process with incentives including security assurances, the normalization of U.S.-DPRK relations, the resumption of the oil shipments stopped in 2002, and development assistance based on a monetary value assigned to the plutonium that is catalogued and removed.

The report is well thought out and cogent, reflecting the combined talents and wisdom of a 26-member all-star team of former ambassadors, Korea experts, academics, retired American generals and senior weapons inspectors.

Unfortunately, their recommendations are not likely to gain traction in Washington anytime soon. For one thing, many of the members, are likely to be viewed as much too sympathetic (read: soft) toward the DPRK. Korea expert and author Bruce Cumings, for instance, has long encouraged his readers to seek understanding rather than judge what the North does. His views are not exactly in vogue with Bush’s people.

More importantly, the Bush administration has clung onto the HEU as proof that the North has transgressed the letter of the 1994 Framework Agreement, which was reached to freeze the North’s plutonium program, and is refusing to negotiate unless both programs are on the table as part of a complete, irreversible and verifiable dismantling settlement.

Before going further, let’s sort through some background. The most recent problem arose from revelations in late 2002 that the North, at least from the time its plutonium program was verifiably frozen as part of the 1994 Agreement, had been secretly running a uranium-based program.

At the time, U.S. envoy James Kelly confronted the North about the HEU and, allegedly, his assertions weren’t denied. Almost immediately, the U.S. suspended oil shipments required by the framework and the North reciprocated by quitting the Non-Proliferation Treaty and expelled the international inspectors monitoring the plutonium.

I say allegedly because the situation quickly degenerated into a he-said, she-said schoolyard fight, only with a proficiency of semantics normally reserved for adults. Harrison, author of an essential primer for understanding U.S.-Korea relations, ``Korean Endgame: a strategy for reunification and U.S. disengagement,’’ has also contributed an opinion piece about this matter in the upcoming January issue of the influential magazine, Foreign Affairs. Entitled ``Did North Korea Cheat?’’ the piece casts a harshly skeptical light on U.S. assertions about the HEU.

According to Harrison, there is a distinct lack of evidence about the program. Raising the issue of the Bush administration’s distortions of intelligence regarding Iraq, Harrison asserts that everyone seems to be just taking the Americans at their word that the North has an HEU program and therefore should be labeled untrustworthy. He also points out that even if we assume the HEU is real, the program has many technological and economic barriers that would be almost insurmountable for the North in its current predicament.

Meanwhile, no one is watching the plutonium and, judging from the results of a visit to the site by American scientists last January, there is clear evidence that the plutonium program is once again progressing.

Why the obsession with the HEU? Harrison posits that the U.S. was disturbed by the willingness of Japan and South Korea to engage North Korea, the South most famously with railway linkages, aid, and the huge industrial complex being developed at Kaesong. ``By raising the uranium issue, the Bush administration hoped to scare Japan and South Korea into reversing their policies,’’ he writes.

In any case, the American insistence on the HEU and its refusal to offer an incentive to bring North Korea back to the table are now the key stumbling blocks keeping the six-party talks from moving forward.

There were unofficial reports last week that the U.S. was indeed ready to offer such an incentive but, in fact, what was mentioned (``a rich basket of aid,’’ the removal of sanctions, etc) is nothing new.

The important fact is that the Bush administration has yet to show any serious indication that it is backing away from its hard-line posture. Indeed, the retention of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and the elevation of Condoleeza Rice to America’s top diplomat, if anything, serve as a nod towards the status quo.

The status quo is an unfortunate mixture of Washington’s refusal to accede to South Korea and Japan’s willingness to engage the North and a disturbing tendency to ignore reality. 

-----

No Peace Until S.Korea Explains Atomic Tests - North

REUTERS
December 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html?pagewanted=print&position=

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea will not dismantle its nuclear programs or improve ties with South Korea until questions about the South's nuclear experiments are clearly answered, Pyongyang said on Sunday.

The U.N. nuclear agency said in November that South Korean scientists had enriched uranium in 2000 to a level close to what would be needed for an atomic bomb and had also extracted a small amount of weapons-grade plutonium in 1982. ``If the South Korean authorities are truly interested in the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula and a peaceful unification of the country, they should explain the truth about the criminal nuclear activities and immediately stop nuclear weapons development activities,'' said Rodong Sinmun, the North's official newspaper. ``Without them, we cannot think about the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula, an improvement in the relations between the North and the South, or regional peace,'' Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial carried by the state's KCNA news agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors rebuked the South but did not refer the case to the U.N. Security Council, saying Seoul had cooperated well with agency inspections and it was unlikely that the experiments had continued.

Pyongyang has refused to take part in a planned fourth round of six-country talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear programs since September, citing the South Korean experiments and what it calls a U.S. hostile policy against it.

The North had attended three rounds of talks with South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, but little progress was achieved.

Pyongyang has also boycotted dialogue with Seoul since August, angered by its airlift of 468 North Korean refugees from Vietnam.

South Korea hopes the start of production next Wednesday at a joint industrial district about 10 km (6 miles) north of the heavily fortified inter-Korean border will help reopen dialogue.

Seoul's top policymaker on the North, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, is scheduled to attend the event.

North and South remain technically at war more than half a century after the truce which halted the 1950-53 Korean War. The combatants have never signed a peace treaty.

As a separate dispute simmers over Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, a senior Japanese ruling party official denied a report that Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura was considering visiting North Korea next year.

``I checked with the Foreign Ministry and they are not considering it at all at present,'' Liberal Democratic Party official Shinzo Abe said on television on Sunday.

``At this stage it would be diplomatically foolish for us to propose talks,'' he added, referring to public anger over Tokyo's revelation that human bones handed over by Pyongyang as being those of Japanese abductees were in fact those of other people. 



-------- missile defense

Spain to deploy 64 Patriot missiles facing Mediterranean: report

MADRID (AFP)
Dec 12, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041212160745.l8akole3.html

Spain is to deploy 64 ground-to-air Patriot missiles facing the Mediterranean following their purchase from Germany, the El Mundo newspaper reported on Sunday.

Spain on Saturday approved the purchase of a US-manufactured Patriot missile battery from Germany, in a deal worth nearly 100 million eurosmillion dollars), according to a government statement.

The battery will help Spain meet a commitment made to NATO to acquire the "capacity to act against ballistic missiles, which have become one of the main and new threats against nation states," the statement said.

El Mundo reported that Spain intends to install at least 64 of the missiles in the southern coastal provinces of Sevilla and Cadiz.

The missile battery, to be bought from Germany for 98.2 million euros, half its market value, will include a radar capable of spotting a missile 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.

Patriot missiles are able to intercept a missile from a distance of 80 kilometres, 20,000 metres (65,000 feet) above ground.

Spain will become the fourth European Union nation to be equipped with the anti-ballistic missile technology, after Germany, Greece and the Netherlands.

Defence ministry officials were unavailable for comment on Sunday.



-------- terrorism

State is open to radioactive terror attack, critics charge
Health services office accused of failing to accurately track whereabouts of waste products

San Francisco Chronicle
Keay Davidson
December 12, 2004
 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/12/MNGN9AAPG91.DTL

The state is vulnerable to acts of radioactive terror because the Department of Health Services has failed to obey a 2-year-old state law requiring it to create a database to track radioactive waste, critics say.

The highest-placed critic of the department's failure to develop the computer inventory is the bill's author, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica.

"I think it's very dangerous for this (health services) administration not to take radioactive waste seriously," Kuehl said. "Radioactive waste is being transported through the state at night, and police and fire personnel are not being trained on what to do if something happens."

The lack of an up-to-date database on who has what radioactive materials and where they're stored, Kuehl said, will make law enforcement's task all the harder in the event of a dirty-bomb attack.

The health department admits it has not created the database required by law. However, officials say they have chosen not to do so because of a funding shortfall, and their belief that there are more pressing priorities.

The resources to create the inventory were to come from a special Radiologic Control Fund bankrolled by licensing fees paid by the state's thousands of radioactivity users in medicine, industry and other enterprises.

"We haven't implemented the program yet," said Kevin Reilly, deputy director of prevention services for the Department of Health Services. "We don't have adequate revenue (coming) into the fund to pay for the whole program" run by the Radiologic Health Branch, which is responsible for developing the inventory along with its other duties.

Reilly said the fund of about $13 million doesn't cover the branch's $18. 3 million worth of mandated responsibilities in this fiscal year.

Why the $5 million shortfall?

"Because there hasn't been a fee increase for the regulated (radioactivity-user) community," Reilly said. "I think the last time (the fee was increased) was maybe 1993."

In theory, the department could use available funds to start implementing provisions outlined in Kuehl's SB2065, Reilly said.

But with the state facing large budget deficits, department officials have channeled the money into what it considers more urgent needs -- for example, inspecting X-ray machines to protect patients from being "exposed to X-rays from machines that weren't properly calibrated," Reilly said.

The fund covers "the cost of enforcement and implementation of programs administered by the department's Radiologic Health Branch," said Lea Brooks, the department's chief of public information, in a Nov. 22 statement to The Chronicle. "The branch's responsibilities include the licensing and inspection of approximately 2,100 licensees using radioactive materials and more than 65, 000 X-ray machines. The program also certifies more than 70,000 health professionals using ionizing radiation sources for medical purposes."

Critics don't buy the lack-of-funds excuse. They claim the agency's Radiologic Health Branch simply has no interest in implementing the law because it is dominated by allies of the nuclear power industry, which fought the bill's passage. The law was signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis in September 2002.

"It has been over two years since SB2065 was passed, and DHS is still making excuses for their failure to implement the law," said Philip M. Klasky, co-director of the Bay Area Nuclear Waste Coalition, an activist group that helped push 2065 into law. "DHS cannot or will not account for the money that was designated to be used to establish and maintain the inventory."

The department, Klasky charged, "has no accurate information on the generation, storage or transport of LLRW (low-level radioactive waste) within California. All other toxic waste industries must participate in an inventory system maintained by the state. By their own admission, DHS conducts inspections of radioactive waste generators every one to five years, hardly an accurate snapshot of the volume of nuclear wastes in the state. No one, no state regulatory agency, no homeland security agency, no law enforcement agency has real-time information on shipments of LLRW that could be used for a dirty bomb."

In theory, terrorists could steal radioactive materials from poorly guarded facilities, then turn them into dirty bombs by attaching them to chemical explosives, the critics warn. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, federal authorities have repeatedly warned that terrorists could use such "dirty bombs" to spread radioactive poisons over large areas.

In a worst-case scenario, a dirty bomb could cause billions of dollars in property damage, spark mass panic, and kill unknown numbers of people. The potential financial scale of a dirty-bomb assault is so great that insurance firms -- even firms well-known for their willingness to sell coverage for unusual risks, such as Lloyd's of London -- have refused to provide coverage for such attacks.

Kuehl's bill specified that the inventory be developed using funds from the Radiologic Health Branch's Radiation Control Fund. Klasky said that when the bill was passed into law, the fund "had in excess of $5 million."

"DHS estimates that the inventory should cost about $1.3 million to develop and about $240,000 a year to maintain," Klasky notes. "The other bureaucracies we talked to -- the state Office of Homeland Security and the California Highway Patrol -- acknowledged the problem but refused to do anything about it. They just passed the buck back to the DHS in a fruitless cycle of ineffectiveness."

Kuehl says she has repeatedly tried to get state officials to carry out the terms of the law -- to no avail. Over the last two years, she has met with numerous state officials from the health agency, the state's Office of Homeland Security and the California Highway Patrol -- all of whom would be prime responders to a dirty-bomb attack -- in an effort to build the inventory.

On Aug. 16, her patience at an end, Kuehl met with the state's public health officer, Dr. Richard Jackson, who was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in March. A statement from Kuehl said that she "explained to him the many efforts we had made to gain implementation of SB2065, and my frustration over the lack of results ... (and) asked that he and his staff take the issue seriously and get back to me with their plans to implement the bill's requirements."

Kuehl hasn't heard from Jackson since, she said. Jackson declined The Chronicle's request for an interview, as did Edgar Bailey, the head of the Radiologic Health Branch.

Implementation of the bill, she said, "just isn't a priority" for the Department of Health Services.

"Apparently, they think they can pick and choose which legislation to follow," she said.

But Reilly responded, "The law does require the inventory system to be put into place, absolutely. Our intention is (to do so) as soon as we can secure some (financial) resources to do so."

How soon might that happen?

"At this point ... I don't really have a time line," he admitted. "But as soon as possible."

E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.  


-------- u.n.

Iran is not imminent nuclear threat: ElBaradei

MADRID (AFP)

Dec 12, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041212143112.8ihap7h2.html

Iran's nuclear programme does not constitute an immediate threat, the head of the UN atomic watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said in an interview published here on Sunday.

"Iran does not represent an imminent nuclear threat," ElBaradei told El Pais newspaper, explaining why the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) decided not to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for threatened sanctions over its nuclear programme.

"For the time being, the Iranian government has not prevented our inspectors from accessing any military building or installation. Until 2003, the Iranians sought to hide things. But their collaboration is good now," ElBaradei said in the interview, given in Vienna on December 9.

"There is still one large military installation left to inspect. I hope that we will be able to access it soon, but there has not been any ban or negative response," he said.

Iran is due on Monday to resume talks with European negotiators aimed at building on Iran's agreement to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment activities that have sparked fears it is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

The two sides will be negotiating a long-term accord that includes "objective guarantees" Iran will not develop the bomb and a package of trade, technology and security incentives.

Iran has pledged to maintain its nuclear fuel cycle freeze for the duration of the negotiations.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is a peaceful one aimed at generating electricity, but the United States in particular suspects it of operating a covert atomic weapons programme.

-----

US spying on head of UN atom agency, seeking to oust him: report

WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 12, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041212203549.6stltb9r.html

US President George W. Bush's administration has listened in on phone calls between Mohamed ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, seeking ammunition to oust ElBaradei as head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, The Washington Post said Sunday.

"The intercepted calls have not produced any evidence of nefarious conduct by ElBaradei," the Post said, quoting three unnamed US officials who had read the transcripts.

"Some people think he sounds way too soft on the Iranians, but that's about it," one official was quoted as saying.

The United States wants the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, which ElBaradei heads, to report Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over what Washington says is a covert nuclear weapons program.

But ElBaradei says the "jury is still out" on whether Tehran's program is peaceful or not.

The Egyptian diplomat, 62, also earned the ire of Washington by questioning US intelligence on Iraq. The Bush administration opposes his winning a third term in 2005 as IAEA chief.

The official US position is that heads of international organizations should not serve more than two terms, as ElBaradei will have done by next year.

Washington has no clear candidate to replace him but is nevertheless "searching for material" to support its argument that he should step down, the Post said.

"Anonymous accusations against ElBaradei made by US officials in recent weeks are part of an orchestrated campaign" to oust him, the paper said, quoting "several senior policymakers" who spoke on condition of anonymity.

These accusations include an unproven charge that ElBaradei withheld damning evidence on Iran's activities from the IAEA board, it noted.

Washington's top favorite to replace ElBaradei is Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, but he has been unwilling to challenge the IAEA chief, the Post said.

The deadline for submitting alternative candidates, December 31, is fast approaching.

"Our original strategy was to get Alex Downer to throw his hat in the ring, but we couldn't," a US policy maker told the Post. "Anyone in politics will tell you that you can't beat somebody with nobody, but we're going to try to disprove that."

Senator Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that the eavesdropping had not revealed ElBaradei had done anything wrong or "inappropriate."

"He hasn't given the administration (of US President George W. Bush) what they wanted to hear. He turned out to be right about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction," Biden said of ElBaradei.

"I think it's a very slippery, dangerous slope, as we are trying to reestablish ourselves as a player in the international community," Biden said, "I would be very careful if I were them."

-----

IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped
U.S. Pores Over Transcripts to Try to Oust Nuclear Chief

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page A01 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57928-2004Dec11?language=printer

The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials.

But the diplomatic offensive will not be easy. The administration has failed to come up with a candidate willing to oppose ElBaradei, who has run the agency since 1997, and there is disagreement among some senior officials over how hard to push for his removal, and what the diplomatic costs of a public campaign against him could be.

Although eavesdropping, even on allies, is considered a well-worn tool of national security and diplomacy, the efforts against ElBaradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned U.S. intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran.

The intercepted calls have not produced any evidence of nefarious conduct by ElBaradei, according to three officials who have read them. But some within the administration believe they show ElBaradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programs. Others argue the transcripts demonstrate nothing more than standard telephone diplomacy.

"Some people think he sounds way too soft on the Iranians, but that's about it," said one official with access to the intercepts.

In Vienna, where the IAEA has its headquarters, officials said they were not surprised about the eavesdropping.

"We've always assumed that this kind of thing goes on," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. "We wish it were otherwise, but we know the reality."

The IAEA, often called the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, coordinates nuclear safety around the world and monitors materials that could be diverted for weapons use. It has played pivotal investigative roles in four major crises in recent years: Iran, Iraq, North Korea and the nuclear black market run by one of Pakistan's top scientists.

Each issue has produced some tension between the agency and the White House, and this is not the first time that ElBaradei or other U.N. officials have been the targets of a spy campaign. Three weeks before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Observer newspaper in Britain published a secret directive from the National Security Agency ordering increased eavesdropping on U.N. diplomats.

Earlier this year, Clare Short, who served in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, said British spies had eavesdropped on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's calls during that period and that she had read transcripts of the intercepts.

The NSA, which is responsible for collecting and decoding electronic communications for the U.S. government, had no information to provide on the ElBaradei intercepts. The CIA refused to comment.

ElBaradei, 62, an Egyptian diplomat who taught international law at New York University, is well-respected inside the United Nations, and many of the countries that sit on the IAEA board have asked him to stay for a third term beginning next summer.

To block that, Washington would need to persuade a little more than one-third of the IAEA's 35-member board to vote against his reappointment.

But even some of the administration's closest friends, including Britain, appear to be reluctant to join a fight they believe is motivated by a desire to pay back ElBaradei over Iraq. Without clear support and no candidate, the White House began searching for material to strengthen its argument that ElBaradei should be retired, according to several senior policymakers who would discuss strategy only on the condition of anonymity.

The officials said anonymous accusations against ElBaradei made by U.S. officials in recent weeks are part of an orchestrated campaign. Some U.S. officials accused ElBaradei of purposely concealing damning details of Iran's program from the IAEA board. But they have offered no evidence of a coverup.

"The plan is to keep the spotlight on ElBaradei and raise the heat," another U.S. official said.

But another official said there is disagreement within the administration, chiefly between Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, who aides say is eager to see ElBaradei go, and outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, over whether it would be worth diverting diplomatic capital that could be better spent on lobbying the board to get tougher with Iran.

In September, Powell said ElBaradei should step aside, citing a term limit policy adopted several years ago in Geneva by the top 10 contributors to international organizations.

"We think the Geneva rule is a good rule: two terms," Powell told Agence France-Presse. "It's not been followed in the past on many occasions, more often than not, but we still think it's a good, useful rule." Powell said he discussed it personally with ElBaradei, who decided he would stay on if the board wanted him.

"However this effort is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing ElBaradei because of Iraq and Iran," said Robert Einhorn, who was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation until 2001.

Several months ago, the State Department began canvassing potential candidates, including Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert.

But the South Koreans and Brazil's Sergio Duarte are now considered to be problematic candidates because both countries are under IAEA investigation for suspect nuclear work. Downer, who is not willing to challenge ElBaradei, still remains the administration's top choice. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31.

"Our original strategy was to get Alex Downer to throw his hat in the ring, but we couldn't," one U.S. policymaker said. "Anyone in politics will tell you that you can't beat somebody with nobody, but we're going to try to disprove that."

That strategy worked once before when the administration orchestrated the 2002 removal of Jose M. Bustani, who ran the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a U.N. organization based in The Hague. Bustani drew the administration's ire when he tried to involve his organization in the search for suspected chemical weapons in Iraq.

The administration canvassed the organization's board and then forced a narrow vote for his ouster. A successor was found three months later, and there was little diplomatic fallout from the administration's maneuver, mostly because the OPCW has a fairly low profile and its members wanted to avoid being drawn into the diplomatic row leading up to the Iraq war.

But John S. Wolf, who was assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation until June, said such action comes at a cost and makes it harder for the United States to keep the world's attention focused on pressing threats.

"The net result of campaigns that others saw as spiteful was that even where the U.S. had quite legitimate and proven concerns, the atmosphere had been so soured that it wasn't possible to recoup," Wolf said.

Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister who now heads a high-level panel on U.N. reform, said that ElBaradei has been excellent in his job and that Washington would be making a mistake to challenge him:

"If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now." 


-------- u.s. nuc facilities


-------- south carolina

MOX test fuels fears of terrorism
Nuclear material puts plant under new scrutiny

By Jason Cato The 12/12/04 Rock Hill, S.C., Herald

http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/4317132p-4099497c.html

LAKE WYLIE -- A storage pool at the Catawba Nuclear Station may soon contain a cache of nuclear material some fear could attract attention from terrorists.

An effort to slash stockpiles of nuclear weapons material in the United States and abroad could make York County a higher priority target, so say groups opposed to a program to burn weapons-grade plutonium in commercial nuclear reactors.

Duke Energy and proponents of the program vehemently disagree, saying reactors like the one at the Catawba plant on Lake Wylie are well protected and that such attacks are unlikely.

With the approval of the test program likely to come early next year, Catawba will be the first commercial nuclear plant in the United States to use weapons-grade fuel. That's why opponents fear it could become an elevated target. Duke officials also had considered testing the MOX program at the McGuire Nuclear Station on Lake Norman in North Carolina.

"These facilities make themselves into bigger targets by taking on this program that is linked to U.S. nuclear weapons," said Dr. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Catawba plant is within miles of Charlotte's banking hub. Also, some 60,000 parcels of property in York County -- reaching into Rock Hill -- are contained within the plant's 10-mile emergency zone, according to York County officials. The plant's production places it in the top 10 percent of the 103 U.S. nuclear plants. Its two reactors generate enough electricity daily to power a city the size of Charlotte, Duke officials said.

The mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel rods that will be used in the plants contain 5 percent plutonium and 95 percent uranium, the fuel that is now used at the Duke plant. The fuel rods are being made in France. The rods, or assemblies, will be shipped to Charleston, then trucked to York County.

The MOX program is designed to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium taken from nuclear weapons by burning it in U.S. nuclear reactors. The same will be done in Russia to reduce that country's stockpile of nuclear material.

European nuclear plants have used a mixture of plutonium and uranium for decades. However, the test program at Catawba will be the first time weapons-grade plutonium is used in MOX fuel by a commercial utility company. That, along with the thousands of miles of transportation and Duke's request for less stringent security measures than normally required by the federal government, has drawn opposition from regional, national and international watchdog groups.

"We've been very concerned about the use of weapons-grade plutonium material, even in a test," said Janet Zeller, director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, a group that has fought Duke's MOX efforts.

Enough plutonium will be on-site at Catawba to build about a dozen bombs like the one dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, Zeller said. About 180 pounds of plutonium will be used at the Catawba plant. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki had 13.2 pounds of plutonium.

"This is an enormous draw for terrorists. It's already weapons grade and could easily be converted into bombs with information on the Internet," Zeller said. "It's too great of a risk for Duke to take or for people in the community to accept."

Five former U.S. nuclear weapons designers concluded "a sophisticated terrorist group would be capable of designing and building a workable nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium, with potential yields in the kiloton range," in a study prepared for the Nuclear Control Institute, an independent research and advocacy center in Washington, D.C.

Less than 18 pounds of plutonium or 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium are sufficient to make a nuclear bomb, said Lyman of the Concerned Scientists group.

"They (Duke officials) have to prevent terrorists like al-Qaida from getting plutonium because they could fashion a crude type bomb that could cause great damage," Lyman said. "That's really the objective you want to prevent, plutonium from getting into the hands of terrorists."

Protecting plutonium

Extracting plutonium from the MOX assemblies would be difficult, Duke officials say.

A new MOX assembly has 44 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium mixed with uranium. The two could only be separated through a technically rigorous process with highly-specialized equipment.

After being in the reactor for two cycles (which run about 18 months each), the plutonium will no longer be weapons grade, Duke officials said.

During the three-year test phase, Catawba will have four MOX assemblies among the 193 assemblies in the core of Unit 1. MOX will account for roughly 2 percent of fuel in that core.

A full MOX program could be up and running by 2010, Duke officials said. At that point, 36 to 40 MOX assemblies will be used in the core. Those assemblies will account for 40 percent of the plant's output.

Duke officials acknowledge plutonium could draw increased attention, but they maintain the MOX test program will pose no significant increase in risks -- in either safety or security.

"There is a concern someone might want to steal MOX during the limited time (few weeks) between the time it's unloaded until it's put in the reactor," said Steve Nesbit, Duke Power's MOX fuel project manager.

The 15-foot MOX assemblies weigh 1,500 pounds apiece and look the same as uranium-only assemblies now used at the plant, Nesbit said. Once they reach Catawba, the four MOX assemblies will be stored in the spent fuel pool with hundreds of other visually identical uranium assemblies.

"Catawba already has stringent security measures in place to protect the possibility of radiological sabotage by terrorists or other groups or individuals," said Nesbit, who added that security measures will be adequately increased when the MOX fuel arrives and the rods are loaded into the core to protect against theft.

But maybe not to the full measure normally required.

Duke officials have requested an exemption from certain security measures required of Category 1 facilities, the classification the Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts on places that have weapons-grade nuclear materials on site. The specific measures are classified. The Blue Ridge group is fighting Duke over the request, with a hearing likely to be scheduled soon.

Because the MOX assemblies could not be easily stolen (such as being placed in a briefcase and carried out of the plant) and will be indistinguishable from other assemblies once stored in the pool, Duke officials feel the security measures put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will keep the fuel safe.

"That's circular reasoning," said Lyman, who also works with the Blue Ridge group in its case against Duke. "You can't just say because it's in a big fuel assembly the threat doesn't exist. They should have to demonstrate that. There are always vulnerabilities, and those vulnerabilities can always be exploited."

A national security exercise led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2002 found that nuclear plants would make less attractive targets to terrorists because of the industry's "robust security program."

The center's president, John Hamre, said that nuclear plants "are probably our best-defended targets. There is more security around nuclear power plants than anything else we've got. ... One of the things that we have clearly found in this exercise is that this is an industry that has taken security pretty seriously for quite a long time, and its infrastructure, especially against these kinds of terrorist threats, is extremely good," according to a nuclear plant security document produced by the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Increased safeguards

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the NRC has increased security at all U.S. nuclear plants. Full details have not been disclosed, but the changes include guarding against more attackers as well as different weaponry and tactics.

The NRC in February 2002 and again in April 2003 ordered enhanced security by the industry. Over the past three years, the industry has added about 3,000 officers and upgraded physical barriers. The Catawba plant has some 1,100 employees, but Duke officials declined to say how many of those work in security.

The industry has spent an additional $1 billion on security since September 2001. Duke has spent more than $8 million for security improvements at the Catawba plant, including building a moat that would help prevent an attack by a truck bomb, said station manager Mike Glover.

The NRC's security regulations are designed to protect against ground attacks from well-trained paramilitary forces armed with automatic weapons and explosives. Security plans also must assume that the terrorists may be aided by an "insider" who could pass along sensitive information.

The Catawba plant passed a mock ground attack early this year, Glover said. Such tests are conducted by the federal government at plants once every three years, but Duke officials conduct their own test more often.

Such exercises, however, only account for land assaults and do not require tests of air or water assaults.

Former U.S. Ambassador Mark Erwin warned the governors of South Carolina and North Carolina in a 2002 letter that terrorists' threats against nuclear plants must be considered a credible reality, according to an interview with The Greenville News.

"Most likely, hundreds of operatives are in America today. They are meticulous planners and are patient beyond our understanding," wrote Erwin of Charlotte, who was ambassador to the African nations of Mauritius, the Seychelles and Comoros from 1999 to 2001. "And if a terrorist were to be successful and take out a nuclear facility, it would make the World Trade Center pale in comparison."

Erwin warned that nuclear power plants "cannot withstand a direct hit from even a private jet loaded with explosives," and concluded: "Our power plants need the equipment only available to our military, including ground-to-air missiles and heavy arms, as well as the trained soldiers to operate these weapons properly to protect these dangerously vulnerable sites."

EPRI, a California-based research organization, however, maintains that areas of nuclear plants that house reactors and used fuel would withstand the impact of a wide-body commercial aircraft. Safety systems and reactors were designed to withstand the impact of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, according to the NRC.

MOX opponents contend that the issue of whether a reactor could withstand such an attack is crucial in that terrorists could be as interested in releasing radioactive materials through sabotage as they could be in stealing nuclear material. Calculations show that some accident scenarios while MOX fuel is being used could release up to 14 percent more radioactivity into the environment compared to uranium-only fuel, Duke officials said.

Nuclear fuel on the move

Two tankers with about 300 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium powder -- enough to make 50 atomic bombs, according to the international environmental group Greenpeace -- left Charleston in September headed to France. By the time MOX assemblies make their way to Charleston next spring, the plutonium will have traveled more than 11,000 miles.

From Charleston, the fuel rods will be shipped across the state under the watch of the Department of Energy. A spokeswoman with the State Law Enforcement Division, which is over Homeland Security issues in South Carolina, would not release details of the shipment or security plans.

Tom Clements, a senior advisor to Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, followed the shipment of plutonium from Charleston to France and called his observations "pretty shocking."

There were definite holes in security, Clements said. He was able to get within 50 feet of a container truck carrying the plutonium in France when it pulled into a regular gas station to refuel. He said officers were nearby, but no one asked him to move or to stop taking photographs. No security officials checked his recreational vehicle that was parked about 100 feet away.

"Somebody would have had a clear shot with a rocket," Clements said.

He expects U.S. security to be better. In France, the plutonium was shipped hundreds of miles and the trip took more than 24 hours. The trip from Charleston to York County will be much shorter, and Clements doesn't anticipate a need for refueling. If that were necessary, he feels such stops should be made at military bases, not commercial businesses.

"Because the U.S. is bigger offers more secrecy," he said. "Security already has an advantage here. But anytime you're putting this stuff on the road, there are safety concerns."

The MOX program opens up more avenues for theft and accidents, Clements said.

"We think first it should be stored in a safe manner and not be put back into weapons. We agree on that point," he said. "But we feel it should not be used in commercial settings. We should not use nuclear bomb material to make energy. It just sends the wrong message internationally."

International implications

Graham Allison, a Charlotte native and head of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, also said downgrading security requirements could send a bad message to the world.

Duke's has one of the better safety and security records of nuclear power plant operators in the country, said Allison, whose new book is "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe." He doesn't believe the MOX program would jeopardize that safety record but is concerned that the company's request for less stringent security measures could lead to problems internationally.

"In thinking about this activity, we need not to think about that it's just happening here, but that it's happening in other countries, including Russia," Allison said. "We should be setting the best feasible, sustainable standard."

Lyman agreed.

"It sends such a bad message," he said. "It undermines the whole purpose of the program, which is to make the world safer."

Russia would resist any calls to do anything more stringent than what the United States does to protect MOX fuel, Lyman said.

"We should be encouraging Russia to do everything it can to protect these materials," Lyman said. "But we can't tell them, 'Do what we say, not what we do.' That's why this program has international implications, and Duke is undermining the entire program."

Allison isn't as convinced as Lyman and others that MOX fuel itself would make the Catawba plant an increased target for terrorists.

"However, it raises the head up a little bit to be more visible," Allison said.

Still, he said, the chances of a terrorist group trying to steal nuclear material from Catawba are remote.

Critics of the MOX program agree, but say that makes it no less important to be prepared and do all that is possible to protect the material.

"The odds are small, but the impact would be significant," said Clements of Greenpeace.

Jason Cato • 329-4071

jcato@heraldonline.com


-------- virginia

Robotic ROSA probes deep inside Surry Nuclear Power Station

Associated Press
December 12, 2004

http://www.wvec.com/news/topstories/stories/wvec_local_121204_surry_robot.2546d1ca.html

SURRY, Va. -- Deep inside the water-filled nuclear reactor, a robotic inspector poked its sensor-tipped arm into a pipe to scan for cracks thinner than a human hair.

Meanwhile, a tiny remote-controlled submarine left its post in the reactor and rose to the surface, its headlights glowing like the eyes of a sea creature. In a trailer about 100 feet outside the reactor building, engineers watched computer screens as they adjusted the robotic arm, moving it by fractions of an inch and crunching the streams of data it collected.

These tools step in for humans in the dangerous environment of a nuclear reactor, and they find flaws that the human eye could not. They are among the instruments of the 21st century that Dominion Resources Inc. uses to run and maintain the 32-year-old Surry Nuclear Power Station.

The nuclear power industry has combined human experience and high technology to reach an era of relative safety 25 years after the accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.

Dominion prides itself on taking stringent measures to detect and head off problems and to keep its plants running as efficiently and competitively as possible.

"If we're not generating electricity, we're not making money, which is not good business sense," said Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations.

The robot, or ROSA, for "remotely operated service arm," came to work at Surry's Unit 1 reactor last month during a scheduled five-week outage of the plant. Every 18 months, routine maintenance is performed on each of the two reactor units and spent fuel is replaced. But the ROSA visit was part of an intense inspection that's done every 10 years to check welds on the pipes that carry water into and out of the reactor core.

The core is where the radioactive process of nuclear fission takes place, heating water to create steam that runs turbines to generate electricity. Leaks in the pipes that carry that water could be disastrous.

The robotic arm used highly precise sensors to find and measure nearly invisible cracks or signs of corrosion where the massive pipes are welded to the reactor.

In the trailer near the reactor, computer screens displayed various images of the ROSA and the pipe's cross-section to help the technicians position the robot.

The ROSA recorded a profile of each weld and sent back its readings through fiber optic cable. A crack would show up as a disruption in the image.

Two technicians from WesDyne International, the subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Co. that created the inspection system, collected the data. One image looked like an asphalt road with a bump of bright orange down the center where the weld is.

In the 10 years since the last inspection, WesDyne has tweaked the system for greater accuracy and detail. It now takes 51/2 days to cover all the welds, down from about 10 days in the past, said Ron Thomas, project manager of the inspection. "We can collect a lot more data in a lot less time." The inspection revealed no immediate issues, Surry officials said, but they will continue to study the data.

During the routine reactor shutdowns, which occur at each of the plant's two units every 18 months, Surry employees take apart every piece of the power generator and inspect various spots in the reactor. Operators want to catch warning signs, such as those hairline cracks. If they catch them early enough, they could have as much as 20 years to react before any leakage would have occurred to disrupt the reactor cooling system.

Dominion, the Richmond parent of electricity utility Dominion Virginia Power, wants to keep its nuclear plants running 24 hours, seven days a week. Any problem that leads to an unexpected shutdown can cost the company as much as $100 million a day to replace the power, said Kenny Sloane, Surry's director of nuclear operations and maintenance.

Surry and the company's two other nuclear units at the North Anna station north of Richmond are among the largest and most-efficient generators in the state. Surry produces more than 1,600 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve about 400,000 average Virginia homes.

Surry's reactors opened i 1972 and 1973, each with a 40-year operating license. They were beset by safety problems for about 15 years, undergoing frequent shutdowns because of weak or blocked pipes, damaged turbines, water leaks, fires and even earthquake concerns. Employee sabotage at the plant in 1979 prompted an FBI investigation, and four workers were killed in an accident at Surry in 1986.

"We were not an excellent operator in that period," Zuercher acknowledged. "We learned a lot from those hard times. The industry as a whole had not evolved to the industry it is today. It was not efficient."

Dominion has since boosted the plant's safety record, instituting a policy for nuclear safety and professionalism in 1989.

In the past year, both units have been cited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for minor safety concerns during regular inspections. This has kept the plant out of the commission's best-performance group, but the findings are considered far from serious, requiring only a slight increase in oversight, said Roger Hannah, a nuclear commission spokesman.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted approval to extend Surry's operating licenses for 20 more years, which means that with the 10 years left on the original license, the plant's aging parts must last three more decades. Surry replaces $2 million to $4 million worth of pipes and other components every year, Sloane said.

Hannah compared a nuclear station to an old-model car that has mostly new parts. "You can almost run that car forever," he said. "That's one of the things they do with nuclear plants."

All over the Surry plant, signs on walls stress Dominion's need for safety, responsibility and housekeeping.

Workers undergo a pain-staking process to protect themselves and outsiders from radioactivity. Those who enter the "containment" area of the reactor building must wear radiation monitors called dosimeters.

Employees working inside the reactor first must strip out of regular clothes and change into the aqua-colored "scrubs" that surgeons wear. Over that, they cover themselves head to toe in white, lightweight, throwaway jumpsuits and hoods, with double layers of rubber gloves and boots.

When they leave the reactor, they carefully remove each outer layer of clothing, one piece at a time, standing in a specific spot on the floor, careful not to touch an unexposed foot in an exposed area. Then, they step into a full-body scanning machine that detects any radioactive contaminants.

Each supervisor wears a specific color of shirt, such as red or green, so employees can readily identify who is making decisions. Sloane said this started after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, when a leakage caused a near meltdown at the plant and threw the operation into such chaos that no one knew who was in charge. 


-------- MILITARY 

Last week the US lost its 1,000th soldier killed in combat. Why did no one notice?

Because the coalition wants to play down the carnage. Especially when it comes to civilians

By Andrew Buncombe, Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker
12 December 2004 UK Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=592328

A deadly milestone was reached in Iraq last week, and hardly anyone noticed. Captain Mark Stubenhofer of the US army's 41st Infantry Regiment, killed in a firefight on a street in Baghdad on Tuesday, was the 1,000th American to die in combat since the country was invaded nearly 21 months ago - yet none of the reports of his death mentioned the fact.

The reason? Only one news agency spotted that the Pentagon's official tally of deaths in action had reached 999, and that its latest casualty announcement meant that the toll was now in four figures. And when Capt Stubenhofer's name was released later, after his family had been informed, no news organisation made the connection, not even The Washington Post, which carried a story because his home town - Springfield, Virginia - is in its circulation area.

The Post reported that Capt Stubenhofer, 30, had last spoken to his parents when he called from Iraq to tell them his wife had had their third child, a daughter. "He never got to see her, though. She'll only know him through us," his mother, Sallie Stubenhofer, told the newspaper. It was his second tour of duty in Iraq; during his first he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Thanks to a website that meticulously records coalition casualties, icasualties.org, we can see that Capt Stubenhofer was older and more senior than most US soldiers killed in Iraq, and that Baghdad, where he died, has claimed more American lives than anywhere else in the country. But because the most significant statistic was missed, there was no analysis of the cost of the conflict so far.

Two years ago, when the rush to war was becoming unstoppable, would we have thought twice if we had known how many Iraqis and non-Iraqis would die or be damaged? This question was not asked on the occasion of Mark Stubenhofer's death: and that is exactly how the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence want it.

In the debate over casualties, the only clear-cut figures are those on coalition deaths, because the British and US governments know it would be impossible to suppress them. But as icasualties.org makes clear, the Pentagon "certainly doesn't go out of its way to divulge" the number of losses. "We are told that during the Korean and Vietnam wars, the names and numbers of dead AND injured were available from the government," it adds. "No longer."

In 2003 the White House issued a directive banning reporters from attending the return of coffins containing the bodies of US troops to Dover Air Force base in Delaware. A Freedom of Information Act loophole, which forced the release of some photographs of such returns, was closed, and a civilian worker who took pictures of coffins aboard an aircraft in Kuwait was sacked.

The British, says the website, "do a much better job with their dead", listing in one place all those lost in the war - though this is clearly easier when the toll is much lower than in the US. There are photographs of the ceremonial return of coffins; the MoD posts the names, pictures and brief biographies, with tributes, of every dead serviceman and woman on its website within a day or two of their death.

What neither Britain nor the US wants, however, is for anyone to dwell on the much greater numbers of military personnel who have returned with physical or mental injuries. Thanks to medical advances, particularly in battlefield treatment, for every US soldier killed in Iraq nine more have been wounded and survived, the highest ratio ever. But media access to military hospitals such as Walter Reed in Washington or Landstuhl in Germany is tightly controlled. Officials at Landstuhl said last month that doctors had treated 17,878 injured or sick US troops from Iraq.

Getting figures from the MoD about the exact number of British injured in the Iraq conflict is very difficult, and no breakdown on the cause of those injuries is obtainable. Official figures are patchy.

The MoD claims releasing casualty data - even rounded-up figures on the type or cause of injuries - breaches patient confidentiality. It says the Defence Medical Services Department insists on this. A spokesman added: "As there is, therefore, no need to collate this information centrally, this is not done."

James Bond, an expert on military compensation claims at the Royal British Legion, the UK's largest ex-services welfare agency, retorted: "Of all the excuses one could think of, that's probably the worst. I don't see how the general release of statistics will affect anybody's recovery. What it will affect, of course, which may be more to the point, is morale - both within the services and in particular the service families. They would reveal that the risks of people getting injured are actually quite high. It's a morale issue rather than a medical issue."

Commodore Toby Elliott, the chief executive of Combat Stress, the main charity for mentally ill ex-servicemen, was more blunt, calling the MoD's stance "a load of bullshit". The MoD as well as those involved in the care of service casualties need the figures, he said.

At least the coalition members collect figures for their own casualties. What outraged a group of more than 40 diplomats, peers, scientists and churchmen who petitioned Tony Blair last week is that they make no effort to count the far higher totals of Iraqi civilians killed and injured. The Prime Minister brushed off their demand for an independent inquiry into the toll, saying figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health "are in our view the most accurate survey there is".

But the ministry, which says 3,853 civilians were killed between April and October this year, has no figures for the preceding period, and many of those killed in Iraq never go to a hospital. Since it is well known that civilians were an increasing proportion of fatalities in conflicts during the 20th century - rising from 15 per cent in the First World War to 90 per cent in the "low-intensity" wars in Africa, East Timor and the former Yugoslavia, according to Barbara Ehrenreich in her 1997 book, Blood Rites - it is hard to escape the conclusion that Washington and London simply do not want to know the figures, to avoid the political fallout they could create.

The thinking became clear from the response of a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, Lt-Col Ellen Krenke, when The Independent on Sunday asked about numbers of Iraqi dead. "It is something that is not done," she said. "We just never have. We keep count of our own, but not the enemy." We were asking about civilians, we pointed out. "No," she said, "we don't do that either."

Additional reporting by Cub Barrett

COUNTING THE COST

1,428

The total of coalition soldiers killed in Iraq by combat and other causes, including accidents. Britain has lost 74 troops, 37 in action; at least 190 non-Iraqi civilian contractors have also died.

98,000

The minimum estimate of "additional deaths" among Iraqi civilians caused by the war, according to a study whose methods have been attacked by the Government. Iraqbodycount.net, which uses press reports and other data, has a much lower estimate of 14,620 to 16,805, but says it is hampered by deteriorating security. Other estimates are 10,000 to 27,000 (Brookings Institution) and at least 37,000 (People's Kifah, an Iraqi group).

2,754

The number of troops medically evacuated to Britain up to 18 November. By 31 August, 79 soldiers had been medically retired, including 19 with mental illness and 27 with accidental injuries. The MoD could not give us more up-to-date figures.

461

The official figure for British personnel in Iraq diagnosed with mental health problems, including 52 with post-traumatic stress disorder. But that was only up until February; welfare organisations estimate the total is now at least 800.

The British casualty

Private Graham Craddock doesn't know if he is still a soldier or not. The reservist believes he has been "cut adrift" by the Army since he was evacuated from Iraq. He has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The PTSD is from what I saw out there," he says. "At hospital I saw Iraqi children with limbs missing. At the same time 1 Para were attacked and were rushed in, and I saw all that. I have flashbacks, I sweat at night. I have antidepressants during the day, plus painkillers for joint and muscle aches. At night I have sedatives."

In civilian life Pte Craddock, who lives in Nottingham with his wife and two children, was a transport administrator. But he had been in the Territorial Army for 18 months. He continues: "In May last year I was called up. We flew from RAF Brize Norton and were put straight to work.

"I drove a water tanker to army camps. I wasn't drinking enough fluids and went down with heat injury.They thought I might have renal failure, so I was medically evacuated."

When he arrived home Pte Craddock says it was left to his civilian GP to diagnose PTSD.

"I got demobilised [from the regular Army, which a TA member is deemed to have joined once on active service]," he says. "Two weeks later I got a letter saying I was being remobilised. Then I got a letter saying I was being discharged on 11 August this year.

"Then two friends from my TA unit came to collect my kit and gave me a form which they had been told they had to bring back signed, saying I was being voluntarily discharged. I refused to sign. I feel used."

Andrew Johnson

The American casualty

Nadia McCaffrey's son, Patrick, a member of the California National Guard, was killed on 22 June this year when his unit was ambushed in the city of Balad, 85 miles north of Baghdad. In January Mrs McCaffrey will join other American mothers whose sons have died in combat and travel to Iraq to meet relatives of Iraqis who have been killed by the US and British invasion.

"We will be mothers [speaking] to mothers," she said. "I don't know [why there is less discussion of civilian casualties]. It is very disturbing."

Mrs McCaffrey said her son, who left a widow and two children, often wrote to her about the Iraqi people, especially the young children who gave him flowers. When her son's body was returned to Sacramento airport she defied President Bush's wishes by allowing the media to film it.

She also talked of her son's despair at the US presence in Iraq. "He was overwhelmed by the hatred there for Americans and Europeans," she told one reporter. "He was so ashamed by the [Abu Ghraib] prisoner abuse scandal. He even sent me an email to tell me that not all the soldiers were like that. He said we had no business in Iraq and should not be there. Even so, he wanted to be a good soldier."

Mrs McCaffrey said she and the other mothers may not be able to enter Iraq because of the lack of security. If not, there are plans to establish a peace camp at Amman, Jordan's capital.

Andrew Buncombe

The Iraqi casualty

During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Ali Midhat Abed Jassim, now 39, was conscripted into the Iraqi army and was wounded in the right leg by a shell. It left him with a permanent limp, but he survived living on his disability pension and earning a little money through a small business buying and selling goods. He married and had one child. He recalls: "When the Americans came I expected life would get better. I did not expect such disasters." At 6am on 3 December his wife heard a loud explosion outside his house in Baghdad and woke him up. Mr Jassim heard that somebody had detonated a bomb beside a Shia mosque nearby. Unwisely he went outside to see for himself what was happening. He could see a car was on fire.

"People were trying to put out the blaze," he recalls from his bed in a Baghdad hospital. "There was a second explosion. I was driven to hospital with a woman who was also hurt by the blast. They cut off my left leg, which was not the one injured in the war with Iran." Mr Jassim can hardly bear to think about the future. He has a pension of 115,000 Iraqi dinars ($75) a month but rent alone is 200,000 dinars. Many of his relatives lived in the same street and four were killed, four injured, in the explosion. "I can't bear to think about anything," he said as he prepared for an operation, his third since the explosion.

Patrick Cockburn 


-------- africa

Ugandan rebels kill seven in raid
Ugandan border with Sudan Seven people have been killed in an attack by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) on a village in southern Sudan.

bbc.co.uk
12 December, 2004

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/4090379.stm

Three women and four children were hacked to death in Rejaf, near Juba, by up to 30 machete-wielding fighters.

The latest attack comes despite Ugandan authorities and the LRA agreeing to try to find an end to the 18-year-old war.

But communication between LRA leaders and the rank and file has proved difficult as they are scattered across northern Uganda and southern Sudan.

The attack occurred on Friday but details have only just emerged from fleeing villagers.

Cut off

"Our workers were told the rebels came at midnight on Friday and cut to pieces the seven people with machetes," local Reverend Paul Yugusuk told Reuters.

"The LRA are becoming very dangerous now for our people because they are operating in small groups and you never know where they will attack."

Woman stands in her charred home in Barlonyo, Uganda

He said eight people who were treated in hospital said about 30 LRA fighters had raided Rejaf, on the banks of the White Nile.

The conflict in northern Uganda has driven 1.6m people into refugee camps and triggered what aid workers call one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.

Little is known about the motives of the cult-like LRA, led by self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony.

The LRA insurgency has been marked by the massacre of civilians and the abduction of tens of thousands of children.

Last month the Ugandan government declared a ceasefire to let the rebels meet local officials and traditional tribal leaders.

But analysts say the LRA has splintered as a result of sustained attacks from the Uganda army.

Small groups of fighters continue to roam the forests and hills of the border, cut off from their commanders.

The government's ceasefire expires on Wednesday and religious leaders have called for it to be extended. 

-----

Rival Congo army factions clash near Rwandan border

Canadian Press
Dec 12, 2004

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1856&ncid=723&e=1&u=/cpress/20041212/ca_pr_on_wo/congo_clashes

BUKAVU, Congo (AP) - Rival factions of Congo's army battled in the eastern region of the vast country Saturday, killing several people, a top military official said.

Soldiers drawn from a rebel group in Congo's 1998-2002 war fought pre-dawn battles near the Rwandan border against troops from an ethnic militia that sided with Congo's wartime government, army Col. Etienne Bindu said.

"There have been several deaths but the number has not yet been established," Bindu said.

The clashes near the city Goma pitted former fighters of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, an insurgency backed by Rwanda, against Congolese ethnic fighters known as Mai Mai.

Bindu, who fought with the Mai Mai during the war, said the ex-rebel troops had been sent to "dislodge" the one-time ethnic fighters from positions outside Goma. He did not say who gave the order.

UN observers flew over the area to check the reports, said Jacqueline Chenard, a spokeswoman for the more than 11,000-member UN Congo mission but she could not immediately comment on the team's findings.

Despite peace deals to end the war that drew in the armies of many of Congo's neighbours, the country's east remains volatile.

Tensions rose further in recent weeks amid allegations of incursions into the region by troops of neighbouring Rwanda, which has been threatening to take action against a Rwandan rebel group based in eastern Congo.

Analysts said the army's continued cohesion is critical for the success of national unity in the Western Europe-sized country, where fighting in 1998-2002 contributed to the deaths of some three million people, mostly through disease and hunger. That war drew in armies from five countries. 



-------- britain

Services' charities condemn MoD

By Severin Carrell
12 December 2004 UK Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=592351

Military welfare charities have attacked the Ministry of Defence for failing to provide details of injuries to servicemen and women in Iraq, and are accusing the Government of hampering their work.

The MoD insists patient confidentiality has to be paramount, and claims releasing the statistics can harm the health of casualties. But James Bond, an expert on military compensation claims at the Royal British Legion, the UK's largest ex-services welfare agency, said this was an excuse. Its real concern was that releasing figures on the cause and type of injury or illness that British troops were suffering might affect morale.

Commodore Toby Elliott, chief executive of Combat Stress, the main charity for mentally ill ex-servicemen, said the MoD's arguments for not releasing detailed casualty figures were "bullshit", adding: "All of us involved in the care of servicemen and women who end up as casualties need to know the statistics, so we can ensure we have the right resources."

Mr Bond said the armed forces in Iraq and at bases in the UK would have very detailed figures on the type and severity of troops' injuries and illnesses. "Those figures are essential when planning how to medically evacuate people ... What it means is that they're actually not bothered about learning lessons from the injury statistics."

Commodore Elliott challenged the MoD's claim that less than 1 per cent of troops in Iraq were suffering mental health problems as "premature and inaccurate". 


-------- iraq

Japan to withdraw SDF from Iraq if security deteriorates: Ono

(Kyodo)
December 12, 2004

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/041212/kyodo/d86tt4fo0.html

 _ Defense Agency Director General Yoshinori Ono said Sunday that Japan would withdraw the Self-Defense Forces from Iraq if security deteriorates, even though the government recently decided to extend their deployment by one year.

"If it becomes unsafe, there may be a situation where we have to decide to halt operations there," Ono said in a TV program on Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) Sunday morning.

"We will respond flexibly" with options including withdrawal, he said.

Ono was referring to a clause that the government recently added to its basic plan for the deployment of the SDF to Iraq that suggests the possibility of an early withdrawal depending on the political and security conditions in the country.

With the basic plan Thursday, Tokyo extended the SDF's aid mission in and around Iraq for a year through Dec. 14 next year despite public opposition due to safety concerns and questions of legitimacy under Japan's Constitution.

"The most important point is the issue of safety there," Ono said during the TV program, while pointing to a plan by the Netherlands to pull out its troops from Samawah in southern Iraq, where most SDF troops are deployed.

About 600 Japanese troops have been in Samawah since early this year to provide humanitarian aid. Restricted by the Constitution, the troops are not involved in maintaining security there and thus depend on the Dutch for their safety. 


-------- latin america

Cuba put US on notice with Monday's massive war games

HAVANA (AFP) Dec 12, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041212193643.qyn4m3p0.html

Cuba's armed forces are gearing up for their biggest military exercises in almost 20 years, with hundreds of thousands of troops and millions of civilians expected to take part, officials here said Sunday.

General Leonardo Andollo told reporters on Sunday that MiG-29 jets, anti-aircraft batteries were to be deployed during the weeklong exercises meant to be a warning to Washington that Cuba would vigorously defend itself against US agression.

The mass war games start Monday and are due to run through to December 19.

Senior military and Communist government officials here warned that the administration of US President George W. Bush should take note of the island's war footing.

"The determination of the US administration to destroy the (Cuban) revolution however they can, including militarily, determines the necessity of conducting these exercises," Andollo, the deputy chief of Cuba's Armed Revolutionary Forces (FAR), said.

His comments come days after President Fidel Castro's brother, Raul, warned Washington should closely observe Cuba's military prowess and civil defenses during the manoeuvres. Raul Castro is the head of the Caribbean island's armed forces.

Operation "Bastion 2004" will involve about 100,000 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel as well as some 400,000 reservists.

Air force MiG-29s, anti-aircraft units and elite troops will also support the operation, billed as Cuba's biggest military exercises since 1986.

Officials said the exercises would also involve several million civilians who will participate in two days of civil defense exercises, including a simulated aerial assault.

Raul Castro said last week the exercises had been planned in part so Washington "does not commit the errors it committed in Vietnam and that it is now committing in Iraq.

"So that they (Washington) do not underestimate our people, who are united and more powerful than those in Iraq," he added.

The Communist-run island sits some 90 miles (145 kilometers) off the coast of Florida.


-------- spies

New Spy Plan Said to Involve Satellite System

The New York Times Company
By DOUGLAS JEHL
December 12, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/politics/12spy.html?oref=login&hp&ex=1102914000&en=00bc60e862c637bf&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - A highly classified intelligence program that the Senate Intelligence Committee has tried unsuccessfully to kill is a new $9.5 billion spy satellite system that could take photographs only in daylight hours and in clear weather, current and former government officials say.

The cost of the system, now the single biggest item in the intelligence budget, and doubts about its usefulness have spurred a secret Congressional battle. The fight over the future of a system whose existence has not yet been officially disclosed first came to light this week.

In public remarks, senators opposed to the program have described it only as an enormously expensive classified intelligence acquisition program without specifically describing it as a satellite system.

Outside experts said on Thursday that it was almost certainly a new spy satellite program that would duplicate existing reconnaissance capabilities. The Washington Post first reported the total cost and precise nature of the program on Saturday, saying that it was for a new generation of spy satellites being built by the National Reconnaissance Office that are designed to orbit undetected.

The officials would not say how many satellites were planned as part of the program, but they said the system included the satellites themselves, their launchers and the technology necessary to transmit the images they collected.

Some current and former government officials expressed concern that the disclosure of the existence of the highly classified program might be harmful to national security. They said Congressional Republicans were questioning whether the public hints first dropped by four Senate Democrats opposed to the program, including John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, might have represented a violation of Congressional rules. Mr. Rockefeller's office said earlier in the week that the senator had consulted with security officials before making a carefully worded statement on the Senate floor that described the classified program as unnecessary and too expensive, but did not identify it further.

But other officials said the depth and intensity of opposition to the program, expressed behind closed doors for more than two years by Senate Republicans as well as Democrats, had finally tipped the balance between secrecy and candor in a way that has led to an extraordinary disclosure.

Among the champions of the program, officials said, has been Porter J. Goss, the new director of central intelligence, who served until this summer as the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But critics, including Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, have questioned whether any new satellite system could really evade detection by American adversaries and whether its capabilities would improve on those already in existence or in development.

"These satellites would be irrelevant to current threats, and this money could be much better spent on the kind of human intelligence needed to penetrate closed regimes and terrorist networks," said a former government official with direct knowledge of the program. "There are already so many satellites in orbit that our adversaries already assume that just about anything done in plain sight is watched, so it's hard to believe a new satellite, even a stealthy one, could make much of a difference."

A Central Intelligence Agency spokesman declined to comment about the existence of any classified satellite program, as did the White House. A spokeswoman for Mr. Rockefeller, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also declined comment. A compromise between the Senate and House that was approved in both chambers this week authorized spending on the program for another year. Money for the program had earlier been allocated as part of a defense appropriations bill that reflected strong support for the system among members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

But Mr. Rockefeller and other Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel, including Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, said in calling attention to the issue this week that they would seek much more aggressively to scuttle the program next year.

The idea that the disputed program might be a stealth satellite program was proposed in an interview on Thursday by John Pike, a satellite expert who heads Globalsecurity.org, a defense and intelligence database. The existence of the first stealth satellite, launched under a program known as Misty, was first reported by Jeffrey T. Richelson in his 2001 book, "The Wizards of Langley: Inside the C.I.A.'s Directorate of Science and Technology." Mr. Richelson said the first such satellite was launched from the space shuttle Atlantis in March 1990.

A second Misty satellite is believed to have been launched in the late 1990's and is still in operation, current and government officials said.

The program now in dispute would represent the third generation of the stealth satellite program, and is being built primarily by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, the officials said. The company has refused to comment on its involvement in any classified programs.

To date, the cost of the program has been in the neighborhood of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, the officials said. But they said that the overall price tag had recently soared, from initial estimates of about $5 billion to the new $9.5 billion figure, and that annual outlays would increase sharply in coming years if the program is kept alive.

"Right now, it's not too late to stop this program, before billions of dollars are spent on something that may never get off the ground and may add nothing to our security," the former government official said.

In his public comments, Mr. Wyden did not mention Lockheed, but he expressed concern about the rapidly escalating cost of the satellite program and the way in which the contractor was selected.

The mere existence of the National Reconnaissance Office was not publicly acknowledged until the early 1990's, and it remains the most secretive among American intelligence agencies. Its main responsibility is building and launching spy satellites to collect images and intercept communications for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.

There are many kinds of reconnaissance satellites, and some of them have the capability, through infrared and radar technology, to acquire images at night and in cloudy weather. Officials have suggested that new technologies may also be able to detect the presence of objects underground. The sharpest images come from photo reconnaissance, but those satellites can generally operate successfully only during the day and in sunny weather.

Officials critical of the new stealth satellite program now in dispute said it would have only photo reconnaissance capability, though with high resolution. The secret nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran are widely believed to be developed underground or otherwise out of view of photo reconnaissance satellites.

"These days, you really have to assume that if there's anything we see in North Korea, it's something they intend for us to see," said Mr. Pike, the private satellite expert.

For the Record - Dec. 13, 2004

A front-page article yesterday about an intelligence program that has been the subject of a secret Congressional battle misstated the name of a database operated by John Pike, who first suggested publicly that the program involved a spy satellite system. The database is Globalsecurity.org, not Globalsecurity.com.

-----

CIA Behind Automated Chat Room Spying Scheme

NewStandard
Dec 12, 2004

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1307

 - Documents obtained by a public interest research center show that the US Central Intelligence Agency and the National Science Foundation collaborated to fund researchers developing software to electronically spy on Internet chat rooms.

The documents, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) through a Freedom of Information Act and reviewed by The NewStandard, show that $157,673 was awarded to researchers Bulent Yener and Mukkai Krishnamoorthy to fund the development of chat room surveillance software. That document includes information about the project -- conducted under the auspices of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York -- the objective of which is described as the establishment of a "fully automated surveillance system for data collection and analysis in Internet chat rooms to discover hidden groups."

The document further explains that surveillance will determine what is being discussed in various chat rooms, who is discussing those topics, and if the topic is "hot" in a particular chat room. "Thus, the proposed system could aid the intelligence community to discover hidden communities and communication patterns in chat rooms without human intervention," the document states.

The description goes on to explain that the "award is supported jointly by the NSF and the Intelligence Community."

Another document obtained by EPIC through the Freedom of Information Act is a "Memorandum of Understanding" between the National Science Foundation and the CIA outlining a "jointly funded research initiative" to "encourage long-term high-risk research approaches to scientific research in support of the nation’s fight against terrorism."

While the amount of money provided by the CIA to the initiative has been blanked out, the Memorandum shows the National Science Foundation contributing $2.5 million in both fiscal years 2003 and 2004. The document also shows that the National Science Foundation is providing 70 percent of the funding, leading The NewStandard to extrapolate that the CIA provided an average of $1 million in each of those years.

According to the CNet News, the development of the surveillance project itself has been known about for some time, but the CIA’s involvement was unknown until the release of the documents.



-------- un

The oil-for-food 'scandal' is a cynical smokescreen

By Scott Ritter
UK Independent
12 December 2004

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=592306

United States Senators, led by the Republican Norm Coleman, have launched a crusade of sorts, seeking to "expose" the oil-for-food programme implemented by the United Nations from 1996 until 2003 as the "greatest scandal in the history of the UN". But this posturing is nothing more than a hypocritical charade, designed to shift attention away from the debacle of George Bush's self-made quagmire in Iraq, and legitimise the invasion of Iraq by using Iraqi corruption, and not the now-missing weapons of mass destruction, as the excuse.

The oil-for-food programme was derived from the US-sponsored Security Council resolution, passed in April 1995 but not implemented until December 1996. During this time, the CIA sponsored two coup attempts against Saddam, the second, most famously, a joint effort with the British that imploded in June 1996, at the height of the "oil for food" implementation negotiations. The oil-for-food programme was never a sincere humanitarian relief effort, but rather a politically motivated device designed to implement the true policy of the United States - regime change.

Through various control mechanisms, the United States and Great Britain were able to turn on and off the flow of oil as they saw best. In this way, the Americans were able to authorise a $1bn exemption concerning the export of Iraqi oil for Jordan, as well as legitimise the billion-dollar illegal oil smuggling trade over the Turkish border, which benefited Nato ally Turkey as well as fellow regime-change plotters in Kurdistan. At the same time as US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was negotiating with Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov concerning a Russian-brokered deal to end a stand-off between Iraq and the UN weapons inspectors in October-November 1997, the United States turned a blind eye to the establishment of a Russian oil company set up on Cyprus.

This oil company, run by Primakov's sister, bought oil from Iraq under "oil for food" at a heavy discount, and then sold it at full market value to primarily US companies, splitting the difference evenly with Primakov and the Iraqis. This US-sponsored deal resulted in profits of hundreds of million of dollars for both the Russians and Iraqis, outside the control of "oil for food". It has been estimated that 80 per cent of the oil illegally smuggled out of Iraq under "oil for food" ended up in the United States.

Likewise, using its veto-wielding powers on the 661 Committee, set up in 1990 to oversee economic sanctions against Iraq, the United States was able to block billions of dollars of humanitarian goods legitimately bought by Iraq under the provisions of the oil-for-food agreement. And when Saddam proved too adept at making money from kickbacks, the US and Britain devised a new scheme of oil sales which forced potential buyers to commit to oil contracts where the price would be set after the oil was sold, an insane process which quickly brought oil sales to a halt, starving the oil-for-food programme of money to the point that billions of dollars of humanitarian contracts could not be paid for by the United Nations.

The corruption evident in the oil-for-food programme was real, but did not originate from within the United Nations, as Norm Coleman and others are charging. Its origins are in a morally corrupt policy of economic strangulation of Iraq implemented by the United States as part of an overall strategy of regime change. Since 1991, the United States had made it clear - through successive statements by James Baker, George W Bush and Madeleine Albright - that economic sanctions, linked to Iraq's disarmament obligation, would never be lifted even if Iraq fully complied and disarmed, until Saddam Hussein was removed from power. This policy remained unchanged for over a decade, during which time hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a result of these sanctions.

While money derived from the off-the-book sale of oil did indeed go into the purchase of conventional weapons and the construction of presidential palaces, the vast majority of these funds were poured into economic recovery programmes that saw Iraq emerge from near total economic ruin in 1996. By 2002, on the eve of the US-led invasion, Baghdad was full of booming businesses, restaurants were full, and families walked freely along well-lit parks. Compare and contrast that image with the reality of Baghdad today, and the ultimate corruption that was the oil-for-food programme becomes self-evident.

Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq (1991-1998) and the author of 'Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America', published by Context Books 


-------- us

US Marine Highlights Civilian Killings in Iraq

Islam Online
2004-12/08

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-12/08/article01.shtml

“I was faced with being deployed to Iraq to do what the infantry does, kill people,” said Hinzman.

TORONTO, December 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Two US soldiers have applied for political asylum in Canada in protest at the atrocities committed by the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan, hoping to capitalize on the country's opposition to US President George W Bush's foreign policy.

In graphic testimonies to a Canadian tribunal, former Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey and fugitive paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman have argued that they could not tolerate killing innocent civilians in Iraq and treat the Iraqis as terrorists any longer, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Wednesday, December 8.

“The code of silence you take in the Marines is much like the one in organized crime,” Massey told Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

The IRB was set up to consider the merits of refugee claims at arms length from the Canadian government.

Canada has declined Bush's request for troops in Iraq and the majority of its people are opposed to the war.

“30 Plus” Civilians Killed

Massey told IRB that men under his command in the 3rd battalion, Seventh Marines, killed “30 plus” civilians within 48 hours while on checkpoint duty in Baghdad.

“I do know that we killed innocent civilians,” AFP quoted Massey as telling the Canadian tribunal. “We were shooting up people as they got out of their cars trying to put their hands up.”

Massey said that in some incidents, Iraqi civilians were killed by between 200 and 500 rounds pumped into four separate cars which each failed to respond to a single warning shot and respond to hand signals, at a Baghdad checkpoint.

Searches found no weapons in the vehicles or evidence that those killed were anything but innocent civilians, said Massey.

He also said marines killed four unarmed demonstrators and more Iraqis the next day during another spell of checkpoint duty in the occupied Iraqi capital.

“I was never clear on who was the enemy and who was not,” said Massey.

“When you don't know who the enemy is, what are you doing there?” Asked the 21-year-old Marine, later honorably discharged from his 7th Marine weapons company.

A study published in October by a respected British medical weekly showed that over 100,000 civilians -- half of whom women and children -- have lost their lives since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

“Evil People”

Jimmy Massey

Massey's testimony came to bolster claims by fugitive paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman that he walked out on the 82nd Airborne Division to avoid being ordered to commit war crimes in Iraq.

Hinzman has told the IRB that the army was drilling its soldiers to think of all Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorists, the Associated Press reported.

“We were being told that it was a new kind of war, that these were evil people and they had to be dealt with,” Hinzman said.

“We were told that we would be going to Iraq to jack up some terrorists.”

Hinzman fled from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on January 2 and now lives in Toronto with his 31 year-old wife, Nga Nguyen, and 2 year-old son Liam.

The South Dakota-born soldier is claiming refugee status based on his contention that he was right to refuse to fight in a war which he says was illegal and violated human rights and the Geneva Conventions.

Hinzman first requested conscientious objector status in 2002 before learning he was to be posted to Afghanistan, where he eventually made 18 combat parachute jumps.

The following year, the request was rejected, and late in 2003 he learned he was to be deployed to Iraq, prompting his flight to Canada.

“I was faced with being deployed to Iraq to do what the infantry does, kill people, and I had no justification for doing so,” said Hinzman.

“The military is to fight justified wars,” added his lawyer Jeffrey House, an American who first came to Canada as a draft dodger during the Vietnam War.

Some 30,000 to 50,000 Americans fled to Canada during the Vietnam War and were allowed to settle there.

Eight US soldiers have begun legal action in an effort to stop the US army extending their tours of duty in Iraq.

The soldiers, seven of whom have stayed anonymous, are believed to be the first active-duty personnel to sue the army.

Since the start of the US occupation of Iraq April 9, 2003, hundreds of US marines have reportedly deserted army units and fled the country through Kuwait or Turkey under disguise, escaping unabated resistance operations. 

-------- 

Six Army reservists court-martialed for scrounging equipment in Iraq

Associated Press
By JOHN McCARTHY
December 12, 2004

http://cbsnewyork.com/national/Soldiers-Scrounging-aa/resources_news_html

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment, six Ohio-based reservists were court-martialed for taking Army vehicles abandoned in Kuwait by other units so they could carry out their own unit's mission to Iraq.

The soldiers say they needed the vehicles, and parts stripped from one, to deliver fuel to Iraq, but their former battalion commander said Sunday the troops should at least have returned the vehicles to their original units.

Members of the 656th Transportation Company based in Springfield, west of Columbus, said they needed the equipment to deliver fuel that was needed by U.S. forces in Iraq for everything from helicopters to tanks.

The reservists took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that had already moved into Iraq, one of the reservists, Darrell Birt of Columbus, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Birt, a former chief warrant officer, and the others were charged with theft, destruction of Army property and conspiracy to cover up their crimes. Birt said he and two others pleaded guilty and the other three were convicted. All received six-month sentences.

``Nobody ever reported these trucks stolen. The deal was, when you are moving, if it was going to take more than 30 minutes to fix it, you left it,'' said Birt, who was released in November. ``I'm a Christian man and I can't ignore what we did, but it was justified to get us in the fight and to sustain the fight.''

Last week, the military said it would not court-martial any of 23 other Army reservists who refused a mission transporting fuel along a dangerous road in Iraq, complaining that their vehicles in poor condition and did not have armor. And on Wednesday, U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Kuwait that they have to scrounge in landfills for scrap metal and discarded bullet-resistant glass to provide armor for their vehicles.

The reservists in the 656th Transportation Company had to move their equipment along with the fuel and likely did not have enough vehicles to do so in one trip, their former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Wicker, said in a telephone interview Sunday.

``That would have required multiple trips back. They do not have many cargo trucks. They are fuel haulers,'' he told The Associated Press.

But once the reservists were done with the assignment, they should have sought out the units the vehicles belonged to, he said.

``Instead of taking the trucks back to their rightful owners, the first thing was erasing the identity marks and dumping them off at bases,'' Wicker said. ``They destroyed it. They did the enemy's job. ... Those trucks could be used for other units.''

Wicker ordered the investigation of the thefts, which occurred before he assumed the battalion post.

``Taking the trucks in my mind was not the worst thing they did,'' Wicker said from Fort Hood, Texas, where he is now with the Army's 13th Corps Support Command.

The 656th's former company commander, Maj. Cathy Kaus, told the Chicago Tribune in Sunday's editions that although she knew the equipment had been stolen, she could not determine its owners. The Tribune said the vehicles were never reported stolen, according to court-martial transcripts.

Kaus is serving a six-month sentence. She and Birt have applied for clemency, which could restore their military benefits and change their dishonorable discharges. Birt said Sunday that his clemency had been denied and he is appealing.

-----

Another Tennessee Paper Finds a National Guardsman Who Questioned Rumsfeld

editorandpublisher.com
December 12, 2004

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000735935

NEW YORK When Specialist Thomas Wilson, with a little help from an embedded reporter from a Chattanooga, Tenn., daily, asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a pointed question about a lack of armored vehicles in Iraq this past week, he wasn’t the first Tennessee National Guardsman to do so.

According to The Tennessean in Nashville, Brandon Sandrell was there first, more than a year ago, and the paper printed a photo of the guardsman with the Pentagon chief.

The paper also published a photo of a wrecked Humvee that Sandrell was traveling in when a bomb was detonated under it during a night patrol near Baghdad just before meeting Rumsfeld. Due to lack of armor, the soldiers had place sandbags on the floor of the Humvee, Sandrell said.

Sandrell said he raised the armor issue with Rumsfeld at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where the soldier was recovering from shrapnel wounds that nearly severed his left arm.

Quoted in the newspaper, Sandrell said: "[Rumsfeld] was making his rounds and thanking me for my service, and he asked me, 'What do you guys need over there, what are you lacking?' I told him we needed up-armored Humvees."

The secretary replied that he was working on it.

Sandrell, 21, left the Guard on Oct. 1.

A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment to the newspaper.

When the attack on the Humvee took place on Sept. 7, 2003, Sandrell said, he had no protection in his Humvee except what he could improvise. "I had armored it myself. We had sandbags in the floorboards and I had an extra flak vest, so I hung it on the driver's side door," he told the Tennessean.

"I loved my time in the National Guard. If I could do it again, I would. For the sake of all the guys going over there, I hope they get more protection on the vehicles. They fight a different way over there," he said. 



-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE



-------- homeland security / national intelligence

Bush seeks security chief as Kerik exits

The Associated Press

12/12/2004

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-12-kerik_x.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House renewed its search for a homeland security chief Saturday as the candidate President Bush thought ideal apologized for an immigration problem involving a family housekeeper that forced him to withdraw.

"I owe the president ... a great apology that this may have caused him and his administration a big distraction," Bernard Kerik said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Speaking from his home in Franklin Lakes, N.J., the 49-year-old Kerik said he had discovered a few days ago that he did not pay all required taxes for a family nanny-housekeeper and that the woman may have been in the country illegally.

The surprise withdrawal by the former New York City police commissioner sent Bush back in search of a nominee to head the sprawling Homeland Security Department, which was created after Sept. 11, 2001, to improve coordination and protection against future terrorist attacks.

On Saturday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been mentioned as a possible choice, expressed no interest in the job. "I am not a candidate," he told reporters in New York.

Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who heads the Senate committee that will take up the nomination, said two "terrific choices" would be Asa Hutchinson, the department's undersecretary for border and transportation security, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

Among the names that had been circulating for the post before Kerik's selection on Dec. 3 were Joe Allbaugh, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Mike Leavitt, former Utah governor and now head of the Environmental Protection Agency; and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend.

But it was still possible that the White House would break the search wide open again rather than return to the previous stable of top contenders, said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We will certainly work to name someone as quickly as possible," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Saturday.

Meanwhile, questions continued over how the White House review process could have missed the kind of "nanny problem" that scuttled high-level appointments in both the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration.

"There's a standard vetting process that we go through with all nominees and certainly we did that" with Kerik, Buchan said. She said it was solely Kerik's decision to withdraw late Friday.

Bush, leaving a Maryland hospital after his annual physical Saturday, ignored a question about Kerik's withdrawal.

Giuliani, a close friend of Kerik's, said Bush administration officials asked Kerik from the beginning whether there were any issues involving domestic employees.

"He didn't think he had a problem," Giuliani. "He made a mistake."

Bush advisers, now having to deal with the kind of messy situation they had so far avoided, were taking Kerik at his word that he had not intentionally misled them, the official said.

Because the issued involved immigration — and the Homeland Security Department includes the immigration agency — Kerik had no choice but to withdraw, Giuliani said. "Every time immigration issues came up this would be a problem."

"It would have been a bitter, difficult battle that probably would have ended without him getting confirmed," Giuliani said.

In the AP interview, Kerik said that on Wednesday — five days after Bush announced his selection — he discovered financial records "that led me to question" whether proper taxes had been paid for the housekeeper. By Friday, he said, "I came to realize ... there may have been a question with regard to her legal status in the country."

Since his nomination was announced, other issues have surfaced indicting that Kerik's confirmation by the Senate might not have gone smoothly.

Some lawmakers have questioned whether Kerik had the management experience to oversee the department, which has 180,000 employees.

Democrats also focused on potential conflict of interest issues because of Kerik's recent $6.2 million windfall from exercising stock options in a stun gun company that does business with the federal department.

According to a report in Newsweek, Kerik also was involved in a civil dispute six years ago after he failed to pay maintenance fees on a New Jersey condominium he owned. At one point an arrest warrant was issued, the magazine said.

Kerik on Saturday denied an arrest warrant was ever issued, but said he had been ordered to appear at a foreclosure hearing. "The lawsuit was settled, the apartment was not foreclosed on," he added. 


-------- POLITICS

Japan PM's popularity plummets after extending Iraq troop presence

Agence France Presse

12 December 2004
	
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/121860/1/.html

TOKYO : Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's support rating has plunged to 37 percent as a growing number of people oppose his decision to extend Japan's troop deployment in Iraq, an opinion poll report said.

Support for the cabinet fell eight points from a month ago to below 40 percent for the first time since he took office in April 2001, while the disapproval rating rose nine points to a record-high 45 percent, the Mainichi Shimbun said Sunday.

The poll was taken in the two days after Koizumi's cabinet decided Thursday to extend the mission of Japan's 550 troops in Iraq for another year.

"It appears that the premier's support rating reflects his decision to extend the troop deployment without receiving the understanding of the people," the paper said.

The poll of 1,115 people showed 62 percent opposed to the extension, up from 51 percent a month earlier, while 31 percent were supportive, up from 27 percent.

A full 84 percent said the premier's explanation for the extension was "inadequate".

The Self-Defense Forces troops have been in southern Iraq on a non-combat humanitarian and reconstruction mission since the beginning of the year, Japan's first dispatch to a country in the throes of combat since World War II.

The public is increasingly unconvinced over the government assurances of the troops' safety, with 56 percent saying that the area where troops were operating was "unstable", the paper said. - AFP


-------- voting

New Study: More Absentee Votes than Voters in Ohio

Scoop Media

12 December 2004

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0412/S00154.htm

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND INVESTIGATION:
    More Votes than Voters in Ohio:
    Absentee Vote Inflated, Certified Vote in Doubt

    A careful review of the absentee vote in one Ohio county revealed that many more absentee votes were cast than there were absentee voters identified.

    All absentee voters must be identified as such by name and residence in the precinct poll books of the precinct in which they are registered. Over 100 precinct poll books in Trumbull County were checked for absentee voters and that number of actual absentee voters was compared to the certified number of absentee votes. There was an inflated difference in nearly every precinct of the five communities examined. The five communities whose poll books were carefully inspected for an absentee vote overcount are: Warren City (311), Howland TownshipThe 106 precincts of these five Ohio communities, about 39% of all precincts in Trumbull County, netted a total of 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books.

    “When there are more votes than voters, there is a big problem” stated Dr. Werner Lange, author of this study which would have been completed weeks earlier if Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign, had not unlawfully ordered all 88 boards of elections to prevent public inspection of poll books until after certification of the vote.

    The absentee vote inflation rate for these five communities averages 5.5 fradulent voters per precinct. If this pattern of inflated absentee votes holds for all of Ohio’s 11,366 precincts, then there were some 62,513 absentee votes in Ohio up for grabs in the last election. Who grabbed them and how they did so should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation.

    INFLATION OF ABSENTEE VOTE IN OHIO:
    Evidence from Trumbull County

        LEGEND
        P --|-- A --|-- B1 --|-- B2 --|-- B3 --|-- C
        P = Precinct No.
        A=Certified Absentee Vote
        (B = Identified Absentee Voters)
        B1= printed B2= handwritten B3= Total
        C= Overcount

    Warren:
    1A --|-- 83 --|-- 48 --|-- 19 --|-- 67 --|-- 16
    1B --|-- 29 --|-- 15 --|-- 5 --|-- 20 --|-- 9
    1C --|-- 46 --|-- 38 --|-- 13 --|-- 51 --|-- -
    1D --|-- 35 --|-- 30 --|-- 9 --|-- 39 --|-- -
    1E --|-- 43 --|-- 31 --|-- 9 --|-- 40 --|-- 3
    1G --|-- 41 --|-- 35 --|-- 4 --|-- 39 --|-- 2
    1H --|-- 21 --|-- 19 --|-- 5 --|-- 24 --|-- -
    1J --|-- 40 --|-- 27 --|-- 6 --|-- 33 --|-- 7
    1K --|-- 47 --|-- 35 --|-- 2 --|-- 37 --|-- 10
    1L --|-- 56 --|-- 36 --|-- 10 --|-- 46 --|-- 10
    2A --|-- 38 --|-- 33 --|-- 3 --|-- 36 --|-- 2
    2B --|-- 31 --|-- 24 --|-- 3 --|-- 27 --|-- 4
    2C --|-- 62 --|-- 58 --|-- 6 --|-- 64 --|-- -
    2D --|-- 20 --|-- 19 --|-- 6 --|-- 25 --|-- -
    2E --|-- 53 --|-- 49 --|-- 0 --|-- 49 --|-- 4
    2F --|-- 34 --|-- 27 --|-- 7 --|-- 34 --|-- 0
    2G --|-- 48 --|-- 37 --|-- 4 --|-- 41 --|-- 7
    3A --|-- 31 --|-- 16 --|-- 10 --|-- 26 --|-- 5
    3B --|-- 27 --|-- 19 --|-- 5 --|-- 24 --|-- 3
    3C --|-- 90 --|-- 69 --|-- 18 --|-- 87 --|-- 3
    3D --|-- 43 --|-- 29 --|-- 15 --|-- 44 --|-- -
    3E --|-- 63 --|-- 33 --|-- 20 --|-- 53 --|-- 10
    3F --|-- 43 --|-- 24 --|-- 14 --|-- 38 --|-- 5
    3G --|-- 51 --|-- 46 --|-- 9 --|-- 55 --|-- -
    3H --|-- 41 --|-- 24 --|-- 9 --|-- 33 --|-- 8
    3J --|-- 49 --|-- 34 --|-- 8 --|-- 42 --|-- 7
    3K --|-- 54 --|-- 32 --|-- 12 --|-- 44 --|-- 10
    3L --|-- 49 --|-- 31 --|-- 16 --|-- 47 --|-- 2
    3M --|-- 93 --|-- 54 --|-- 34 --|-- 88 --|-- 5
    4A --|-- 30 --|-- 15 --|-- 5 --|-- 20 --|-- 10
    4B --|-- 35 --|-- 20 --|-- 7 --|-- 27 --|-- 8
    4C --|-- 21 --|-- 13 --|-- 6 --|-- 19 --|-- 2
    4D --|-- 11 --|-- 4 --|-- 4 --|-- 8 --|-- 3
    4E --|-- 22 --|-- 13 --|-- 3 --|-- 16 --|-- 6
    4F --|-- 25 --|-- 19 --|-- 5 --|-- 24 --|-- 1
    4G --|-- 14 --|-- 5 --|-- 3 --|-- 8 --|-- 6
    4H --|-- 20 --|-- 21 --|-- 3 --|-- 24 --|-- -
    5A --|-- 45 --|-- 31 --|-- 13 --|-- 44 --|-- 1
    5C --|-- 26 --|-- 16 --|-- 8 --|-- 24 --|-- 2
    5D --|-- 64 --|-- 48 --|-- 10 --|-- 58 --|-- 6
    5E --|-- 60 --|-- 34 --|-- 21 --|-- 55 --|-- 5
    5F --|-- 60 --|-- 37 --|-- 13 --|-- 50 --|-- 10
    5G --|-- 50 --|-- 29 --|-- 11 --|-- 40 --|-- 10
    5H --|-- 63 --|-- 47 --|-- 6 --|-- 53 --|-- 10
    5K --|-- 102 66 --|-- 24 --|-- 90 --|-- 12
    5L --|-- 21 --|-- 17 --|-- 7 --|-- 24 --|-- -
    6A --|-- 40 --|-- 27 --|-- 10 --|-- 37 --|-- 3
    6B --|-- 48 --|-- 25 --|-- 13 --|-- 38 --|-- 10
    6C --|-- 37 --|-- 25 --|-- 0 --|-- 25 --|-- 12
    6D --|-- 39 --|-- 28 --|-- 6 --|-- 34 --|-- 5
    6E --|-- 81 --|-- 50 --|-- 12 --|-- 62 --|-- 19
    6G --|-- 38 --|-- 20 --|-- 14 --|-- 34 --|-- 4
    7A --|-- 34 --|-- 32 --|-- 1 --|-- 33 --|-- 1
    7B --|-- 66 --|-- 49 --|-- 14 --|-- 63 --|-- 3
    7C --|-- 50 --|-- 35 --|-- 5 --|-- 40 --|-- 10
    7D --|-- 41 --|-- 26 --|-- 0 --|-- 26 --|-- 15
    7E --|-- 40 --|-- 30 --|-- 7 --|-- 37 --|-- 3
    7F --|-- 16 --|-- 11 --|-- 3 --|-- 14 --|-- 2

    Total Overcount: Warren 311

    Howland Township:
    A --|-- 34 --|-- 20 --|-- 4 --|-- 24 --|-- 10
    B --|-- 22 --|-- 19 --|-- 3 --|-- 22 --|-- 0
    C --|-- 53 --|-- 39 --|-- 11 --|-- 50 --|-- 3
    D --|-- 61 --|-- 48 --|-- 13 --|-- 61 --|-- 0
    E --|-- 43 --|-- 32 --|-- 5 --|-- 37 --|-- 6
    F --|-- 41 --|-- 34 --|-- 3 --|-- 37 --|-- 4
    G --|-- 44 --|-- 34 --|-- 5 --|-- 39 --|-- 5
    H --|-- 122 95 --|-- 14 --|-- 109 13
    J --|-- 70 --|-- 57 --|-- 9 --|-- 66 --|-- 4
    K --|-- 66 --|-- 45 --|-- 11 --|-- 56 --|-- 10
    L --|-- 48 --|-- 33 --|-- 9 --|-- 42 --|-- 6
    M --|-- 50 --|-- 36 --|-- 9 --|-- 45 --|-- 5
    N --|-- 74 --|-- 55 --|-- 9 --|-- 64 --|-- 10
    P --|-- 36 --|-- 21 --|-- 5 --|-- 26 --|-- 10
    Q --|-- 43 --|-- 33 --|-- 5 --|-- 38 --|-- 5
    R --|-- 39 --|-- 32 --|-- 9 --|-- 41 --|-- -
    S --|-- 84 --|-- 67 --|-- 7 --|-- 74 --|-- 10
    T --|-- 44 --|-- 35 --|-- 3 --|-- 38 --|-- 4
    V --|-- 42 --|-- 22 --|-- 7 --|-- 29 --|-- 13
    W --|-- 61 --|-- 50 --|-- 9 --|-- 59 --|-- 2
    X --|-- 56 --|-- 45 --|-- 6 --|-- 51 --|-- 5
    Y --|-- 69 --|-- 49 --|-- 7 --|-- 56 --|-- 13
    Total Overcount: Howland Township 138

    Newton Falls
    City:
    1A --|-- 61 --|-- 44 --|-- 4 --|-- 48 --|-- 13
    2A --|-- 37 --|-- 35 --|-- 0 --|-- 35 --|-- 2
    3A --|-- 62 --|-- 49 --|-- 1 --|-- 50 --|-- 12
    4A --|-- 41 --|-- 32 --|-- 2 --|-- 34 --|-- 7
    Total Overcount: Newton Falls City 34

    Girard City:
    1A --|-- 58 --|-- 38 --|-- 0 --|-- 38 --|-- 20
    1B --|-- 54 --|-- 41 --|-- 11 --|-- 52 --|-- 2
    1C --|-- 51 --|-- 47 --|-- 8 --|-- 55 --|-- -
    2A --|-- 57 --|-- 45 --|-- 5 --|-- 50 --|-- 7
    2B --|-- 62 --|-- 56 --|-- 6 --|-- 62 --|-- 0
    2C --|-- 35 --|-- 30 --|-- 0 --|-- 30 --|-- 5
    2D --|-- 45 --|-- 29 --|-- 8 --|-- 37 --|-- 8
    3A --|-- 26 --|-- 25 --|-- 4 --|-- 29 --|-- -
    3B --|-- 69 --|-- 53 --|-- 18 --|-- 71 --|-- -
    3C --|-- 43 --|-- 35 --|-- 1 --|-- 36 --|-- 7
    3D --|-- 42 --|-- 34 --|-- 0 --|-- 34 --|-- 8
    4A --|-- 55 --|-- 42 --|-- 13 --|-- 55 --|-- 0
    4B --|-- 43 --|-- 42 --|-- 3 --|-- 45 --|-- -
    4C --|-- 36 --|-- 35 --|-- 2 --|-- 37 --|-- -
    Total Overcount: Girard City 57

    Cortland:
    A --|-- 50 --|-- 34 --|-- 13 --|-- 47 --|-- 3
    B --|-- 61 --|-- 41 --|-- 15 --|-- 56 --|-- 5
    C --|-- 75 --|-- 59 --|-- 11 --|-- 70 --|-- 5
    D --|-- 59 --|-- 38 --|-- 11 --|-- 49 --|-- 10
    E --|-- 67 --|-- 54 --|-- 13 --|-- 67 --|-- 0
    F --|-- 61 --|-- 51 --|-- 8 --|-- 59 --|-- 2
    G --|-- 75 --|-- 55 --|-- 10 --|-- 65 --|-- 10
    H --|-- 54 --|-- 37 --|-- 12 --|-- 49 --|-- 5
    Total Overcount: Cortland --|-- --|-- --|-- --|-- 40

    Total Overcount from these five Trumbull County communities: 580

    Key Findings:

    1. 580 votes attributed to absentee voters in these five communities had no record in the precinct poll books of the identity of the voter.

    2. Only five precincts had a certified absentee vote that was equivalent to the number of identified absentee voters in the precinct poll book. The five are: Warren 2F; Howland D; Cortland E; and Girard 4A and 2A.

    3. An overcount of exactly 10 absentee votes was unusually common. 17 precincts showed 10 more absentee votes than there were identified absentee voters. The 17 are:

    Warren 1K; 1L; 3E; 3K; 4A; 5F; 5G; 5H; 6B; 7C; Howland A, K, N, P, S; and Cortland D and G.

    Discussion:

    Absentee voters, like any other registered voters, must have their name and address appear in the poll book of the precinct in which they reside and vote. No legitimate absentee ballot can be cast without the name of the registered absentee voter appearing in the precinct poll book. If application for an absentee ballot is made in a timely fashion, then “absentee voter” appears in bold print within the signature box of that voter. If the request for an absentee ballot comes close to the election, then evidently those words or similar ones are handwritten within the signature box. Also, if the registered absentee voter chooses to vote at the Trumbull Board of Elections, then this information is shared with precinct poll workers who are to write in “absentee voter”

    For this study, both the printed and written absentee voter identification were verified for each of the 106 precincts carefully scrutinized. The actual total number of identified absentee voters appears in column B3. Board of Election officials mark the certified absentee vote in red ink on the cover of the poll book as well as on the Reconciliation Certificate found within it, often changing the number which appeared on the cover in black ink. The number of absentee votes counted and certified appears in column A. If there is a higher number in column B3 than A, then not all persons receiving an absentee ballot returned them or some other legitimate reason can explain the difference.

    If there is a higher number in column A than in column B3 – as happened in nearly every precinct examined – then there must have been more absentee votes cast than there were absentee voters identified in the poll books. This glaring discrepancy cries out for an explanation and investigation. There cannot and must not be more votes than voters in any legitimate election.

    Conclusion:

    If this pattern of overcounting absentee votes is a statewide one, then tens of thousands of phoney absentee votes were up for grabs in Ohio. Who grabbed them and how they got them should be a subject of an immediate congressional investigation.

    For further information, please contact Dr. Werner Lange, author of this study, at Werlange@earthlink.com



-------- ACTIVISTS

Anti-war protesters call for wave of civil disobedience

UK sunday herald
By Peter John Meiklem
12 December 2004

http://www.sundayherald.com/46562

ANTI-WAR campaigners will be urged this weekend to target Scottish military bases with a new wave of “civil disobedience” protests that could see fences cut, runways invaded and aeroplanes vandalised.

Leading figures in the Scottish anti-war movement will call for more “proactive” tactics at a meeting in Glasgow over the weekend.

Activists believe an increase in “direct action” such as blocking roads and breaking into bases will discourage politicians from supporting future military campaigns.

The protesters hope a “widening” of tactics will high-light the “crucial” role that Scots bases played in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Possible targets include Britain’s strategic nuclear submarine base at Faslane, the airbase at Lossiemouth – home to the UK’s largest Tornado fleet – and the defence munitions depot at Beith, in Ayrshire.

The call has caused splits in the movement with some senior voices demanding “peaceful, legal protests” to build a “mass movement to bring the war to an end”.

The organiser of the anti-war forum, who did not wish to be named, said civil disobedience had a critical role to play in preventing future wars. He said tactics would vary from “organising mass sit-downs and blocking roads” to “breaking into military bases to disrupt the work that goes on inside; actually getting to the airplanes so we can damage them and other service vehicles”.

The tactics were an attempt to move the anti-war movement from protest to resistance, he said.

“We want to try and stop things from happening. We see this in terms of a widening; these activities and activists already exist, it’s just a case of bringing them to the front.”

He said Scotland’s role in the war in Iraq would be highlighted by the protests. One-off marches showed the depth of public opposition but were too easily contained, he added. “The opposition needs to be translated into action and these actions need to be more challenging.”

Milan Rai, author of War Plan Iraq and Regime Unchanged and a member of the anti-war group Justice Not Vengeance, said that direct action and civil disobedience were very important tactics in the run-up to a general election. “These protests have a real potential to stop wars from happening.” He said there was always a risk with targeted civil disobedience “but there is a risk with everything, especially inaction”.

Ewa Jasiewicz, a freelance journalist who lived in Iraq for eight months this year, said the anti-war movement shouldn’t give up civil disobedience tactics to “fox hunters and batmen”, but try and foster as much direct action as possible. “We should look at affecting bases and arms companies directly. It is our responsibility to undermine them and challenge them,” she said.

Patrick Harvie, Green MSP for Glasgow and anti-war figure, said his party had always supported non-violent direct action and would continue to do so. “If it is about opposing future threats to other countries, then I am fully supportive of it.”

He said if the aggression was illegal then the military bases were “legitimate targets”, but action had to be carefully thought through so that “it doesn’t alienate people”. Protest was not just about “filling the streets with people”, he added, but about “picking the right target and using direct action in a careful and thoughtful way”.

However, Colin Buchanan, co-ordinator of the Troops Out Of Iraq network in Glasgow, said the anti-war movement should concentrate on legal, peaceful protests such as vigils for the dead and picketing the Scottish Labour Party offices.

He said the anti-war forum would discuss a number of different ways to oppose the occupation at this weekend’s meeting. “There is a massive depth of public opposition to the war and it is really a question of how to tap into that.”

A Ministry Of Defence spokesman said they had no problems with legitimate, lawful protest. He said: “We think there is a place for it. However, the security of our personnel and equipment, who are after all responsible for the security of the UK and its people, is paramount. We will deal seriously with anybody who threatens that.” 

-----

Veteran of war among 100 protesting action in Iraq

Plain Dealer Reporter
Catherine Gabe
December 12, 2004

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1102847663111890.xml

Braving Saturday's snappy winds and wet snow, about 100 marchers protested the war in Iraq, spreading their message from Cleveland's West Side to downtown.

Among them were professors, students, a pediatrician, a judge, a Jesuit priest, a mother of a soldier and veteran Chad Salamon, who returned from Iraq in August.
 
"The bottom line is that our government has betrayed us," said Salamon of Ravenna, who served as a mechanic in a medical unit for six months as a member of the Ohio National Guard. "They have betrayed the men and women in uniform by sending them into harm's way without proper protection or just cause."

Salamon, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, walked with the marchers from a park near the West Side Market, through Ohio City and over the Detroit-Superior (Veterans Memorial) Bridge for a speech at Public Square.

The event was organized by the Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition.

Sheri Banks of Sagamore Hills watched the protesters after shopping at the market with her husband, Gary.

"I agree with them," she said. "A lot of people never open their mouths and nothing changes."

After a speakout on Public Square, some of the marchers walked into Tower City to warm themselves.

Cleveland police and management representatives quickly escorted them outside after they began anti-war chants.

Lakewood residents Liz Conway and Elizabeth Wood were nearly arrested after trying to re-enter Tower City to board the RTA rapid home. Police ordered them to leave immediately and take off stickers that read "End the U.S. Empire."

"I can't believe that anything you say against Bush or that's not patriotic is an arrestable offense," Wood said.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

cgabe@plaind.com, 1-800-767-2821 

--------

The minister was jailed for anti-war beliefs

Times Argus

December 12, 2004

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041212/NEWS/412120306/1013

If Clarence Waldron ever wondered whether he was in trouble, the crowd must have removed any doubts. A throng of people – estimates range from 300 to 1,000 – swarmed around him at his place of work, demanding he defend what he had done, or rather hadn't done, earlier that day.

Waldron bravely met the crowd on the steps of the First Baptist Church of Windsor, where he was minister, and tried to explain. It wouldn't be easy – not to this crowd, not in this era.

It was Oct. 21, 1917, and America was in a war frenzy. The country had joined the fighting in the Great War six months earlier and bodies of dead American boys were returning home from battlefields overseas.

People were so concerned about the war that some even feared the fighting would reach American shores. Some Vermonters around White River Junction armed themselves and took turns guarding railroad bridges. They were on the lookout for German saboteurs.

If any Vermont community was going to aggressively support the war, it would be Windsor. When fighting broke out in Europe in 1914, the local machine tool industry kicked into high gear to meet the orders that began flowing from the warring nations. As workers streamed into town to take jobs at the busy factories, Windsor's population doubled.

The day Waldron faced the crowd was the date that President Woodrow Wilson had declared "Liberty Loan Sunday," when he expected the nation's clergy to decorate their churches in red, white and blue and to lead their congregations in singing the Star-Spangled Banner. The idea was to encourage congregants to buy Liberty Bonds to fund the war.

Across the country, clergy members complied. So too in Windsor, except at Waldron's church, where that Sunday's service was no different than ever. Word of Waldron's decision spread quickly through town, and by evening the crowd had gathered outside his church.

His patriotism clearly questioned, Waldron responded by saying that he was "as loyal an American as ever walked in shoe leather." His family was American through and through, he insisted, and could trace its roots to the Mayflower. Waldron said he supported his government and deplored the German Kaiser. His opposition to selling war bonds in church wasn't political, but religious. He said that as a minister he found it inappropriate to discuss earthly matters in church, where the gospels were the only proper subject. He apparently didn't mention it, but his religious beliefs had long ago made him a pacifist.

Under pressure from the crowd to prove his patriotism, Waldron, wrapped himself in the American flag and sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." He was joined by his wife and some friends from his congregation.

Clarence Waldron seems an unlikely fellow to be considered a traitor. His fight to defend his name might have been forgotten if not for the research of historian Gene Sessions, who wrote about Waldron years ago for the journal of the Vermont Historical Society. The Waldron story also was told briefly in "Freedom and Unity," a state history he co-authored earlier this year.

Waldron, who followed his father into the ministry, had studied at an evangelical bible school with a Pentecostal bent and been ordained a Baptist minister before landing the job in Windsor in 1915. Emulating the flashy, charismatic style of famed evangelist Billy Sunday, Waldron soon drew new members to his congregation. In short order, Waldron had roughly tripled the number who attended church each Sunday.

He seemed more a pillar of the community than an enemy of the state.

But, Sessions says, Waldron had made enemies in making converts. A wave of Pentecostalism was hitting Windsor at the time, and Waldron chose to ride it. He noticed that a street-corner Pentecostal preacher was especially good at drawing crowds. They did this by "healing the sick, casting out demons, and speaking in other languages as the Spirit gives utterance," as an advertisement in a local newspaper promised.

Waldron soon decided to conduct similar services, and eventually the Pentecostals began attending his Baptist church. It was apparently was not a cynical move on Waldron's part – for it seems he did share Pentecostalism's literal view of the Bible.

But not everyone in his congregation did, so his decision began to split the congregation. Many longtime members objected to the presence of Pentecostals and their flamboyant displays of faith.

Several days after the dispute on the church steps, some members of Waldron's congregation asked him to resign. The issue was the Pentecostals, though the war-bonds controversy may have lurked in the background. The minister refused to step down.

Next, the church's organizing group, the Vermont Baptist State Convention, began pressuring Waldron to resign. In his defense, he said he would understand the move if he "were teaching Universalism, Spiritualism, Mormonism, Christian Science or any other 'ism' contrary to view and practice held by the church." He argued that "Pentecostal truth" and "Baptist truth" were both "God's unchanging truth." Again he refused to resign, saying Windsor was primed for "a real religious awakening."

The board, unmoved, fired Waldron.

Denied a church, Waldron continued to conduct Pentecostal meetings at his home. If he thought his troubles were over, he was wrong.

Almost immediately after his firing, a federal grand jury in Brattleboro began investigating Waldron for alleged anti-war activities. On Dec. 21, the grand jury indicted him for violating the Espionage Act that Congress had passed in June, just two months after the United States had entered the war. Despite the name, the act contained a section that had nothing to do with spying. The act called for prison terms of up to 20 years to "whoever, when the United States is at war, … shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the U.S…."

Based on the grand jury testimony of some parishioners, Waldron was charged with violating the act. They accused him of making unpatriotic statements in church and in private, and of trying to dissuade young men from enlisting. He had allegedly told men in a Bible class that a Christian would not fight in a war, and distributed a pamphlet that reiterated the argument. Furthermore, he had once been heard to say "to hell with patriotism."

When he took the stand, Waldron acknowledged that he believed that Christians should not fight wars. The Ten Commandments forbade killing, he explained. Ironically, he had distributed the pamphlet in hopes of calming tensions after the church-step controversy.

On the stand, he also admitted making the comment about patriotism, but explained that he had made it before the United States entered the fighting. And the comment had been about the extreme German nationalism that had sparked the war. "If this is patriotism," he had said, "to hell with patriotism."

The jury, perhaps perceiving that a community religious dispute was a part of Waldron's troubles, failed to reach a verdict. At a second trial, at which the judge barred any testimony related to the religious dispute, the jury convicted Waldron. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Advised by lawyers that an appeal was hopeless, Waldron entered prison on April 1, 1918.

He was hardly the only American tried under the Espionage Act. His, however, was the first major case involving someone being tried for his religious beliefs. During the war, roughly 900 American were convicted under the Espionage Act.

Waldron was not the only Vermonter prosecuted or persecuted at the time for his beliefs. Sessions cites several examples: A Wilmington high school student refused to salute the flag and, along with his parents, was hounded out of town; Frazier Metzger, a one-time Progressive Party candidate for governor, was labeled a German spy by the U.S. State Department, based on a false rumor; a professor of German at the University of Vermont was bullied into resigning. And, in the most serious case, a worker at a dairy in the town of Holland, who perhaps not coincidentally was of German descent, was convicted of making "seditious statements" and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

Waldron never completed his sentence. A year after entering prison, with the war having ended months earlier, President Wilson pardoned him and many others convicted under the Espionage Act. Waldron assumed a Pentecostal ministry and settled, with his wife and daughter, far from Vermont.

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Burmese junta releases dissidents

bbc

12 December, 2004

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4088581.stm

Two senior pro-democracy activists are among over 5,000 prisoners being freed from jail in Burma over the weekend.

The military jailed Htwe Myint and Thu Wai, both in their seventies, in 1995 for distributing opposition pamphlets.

A TV message said the inmates were arrested by the now disbanded National Intelligence Bureau led by ousted Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.

The latest move brings to 14,318 the total number of prisoners ordered released following a November amnesty.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and has had her detention extended until next September.

Unlikely threat

The two activists, both leading members of Burma's democracy party, are now believed to be at home with their families.

However BBC regional analyst Tony Cheng says there is little sign that the country's military rulers will be relaxing their grip on power.

Those released are all in poor health and are unlikely to pose a major threat to the ruling generals, he adds.

Khin Nyunt, who is under house arrest, was ousted on 19 October by Than Shwe, head of the junta, in what was seen as a consolidation of his power.

Within days, the intelligence bureau, which gave officers loyal to Khin Nyunt widespread powers and benefits, was abolished.

The human rights group Amnesty International estimates that there were 1,350 political detainees in 2004, many associated with Aung Sang Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

The junta says it is not holding any political prisoners.