NucNews - December 16, 2004



-------- NUCLEAR 

U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert

By Mark McDonald
Thu, Dec. 16, 2004
Knight Ridder Newspapers

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10433487.htm

MOSCOW - Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker's main control panel: Missile Attack!

It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound.

The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration.

This brush with Armageddon happened more than two decades ago, but nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert in Russia and the United States. Today, they may be even more vulnerable to an accidental or renegade launch than they were in Petrov's day.

"The security of both nations should not be dependent on the heroic act or good judgment of a single individual," said Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia.

Long active in anti-proliferation efforts such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn is leading a campaign to persuade U.S. and Russian leaders to take their thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert, a status that remains in effect more than a decade after the Cold War ended.

"The chances of a premeditated, deliberate nuclear attack have fallen dramatically," Nunn said in an interview with Knight Ridder. "But the chances of an accidental, mistaken or unauthorized nuclear attack might actually be increasing."

In his 2000 election campaign, President Bush called the hair-trigger status "another unnecessary vestige of Cold War confrontation" that creates "unacceptable risks."

The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which took effect 10 years ago this month, doesn't address hair triggering. Nor does the Treaty of Moscow, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002 to reduce the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals.

Nunn believes the hair-trigger status has become "the most dangerous element of our force posture."

A hair trigger means missiles are launched - either from land or sea - upon the warning of an attack. That is, within about 15 minutes of a confirmed warning. In theory, the assurance that a retaliatory attack would be launched before the missiles could be destroyed would deter either country from trying a nuclear sneak attack.

"This is the logic of the Cold War - Mutual Assured Destruction," said Daniil O. Kobyakov, a nuclear expert at the PIR Center, a policy studies institute in Moscow. "De-alerting requires a change in rationale. There's still a certain inertia on both sides."

Nunn and others see that inertia in the Bush administration's refusal to consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its request - since defeated in the Senate - for some $500 million for research on a so-called "bunker buster" nuclear weapon and low-yield "mini-nukes."

Russia, too, has some Cold War inertia to overcome. Putin proudly announced last month that Russia was testing "the newest nuclear missile systems ... that other nuclear states do not have." He offered no further details about the weapons.

A number of political analysts believe Putin's comments - which were unprepared remarks made to a group of senior commanders at the Ministry of Defense - were intended to boost military morale and for domestic political consumption.

"I'm sure it was nothing surprising to the U.S.," said Kobyakov, noting that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty obliges each side to provide technical data on any new nuclear weapons.

Kobyakov and others believe Putin was probably referring to the Topol-M missile, which has long been in the Russian pipeline, and a sea-launched missile that's being developed. There are rumors in military circles in Moscow that the new missile could be maneuvered in flight, unlike current ballistic missiles, to foil the Bush administration's planned national missile defense system. One senior Russian general cryptically called it "a hypersonic flying vehicle."

Government officials in both countries are keen to point out that they've stopped targeting each other with their nuclear missiles, although experts say this "de-targeting" is political hokum.

The old targeting data and missile trajectories are stored in command computers, Kobyakov said. And missiles can be re-targeted in a matter of seconds: A couple of mouse clicks on a computer would put Washington, Miami or Moscow back in the nuclear crosshairs.

But it's the danger of accidental or maverick launches that most concerns atomic experts. That danger is heightened, in part, by the decrepit state of Russian defenses.

"The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless," said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology.

Holes in Russia's satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all.

Postol also said a new Prognoz satellite warning system "may never be in place."

Stanislav Petrov, the old bunker commander, the man who saved America back in 1983, nodded his head sadly when told of Postol's assessment.

"That's right, not enough satellites," he said. "We never had enough." 

--------

Cuban missile crisis just one of at least 4 other crises

By Mark McDonald
Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004 Knight Ridder Newspapers

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10433490.htm

MOSCOW - The Cuban missile crisis erupted in October 1962 when it was
discovered that the Soviet Union had installed nuclear warheads on the
island and targeted them at the United States. After a tense, 13-day
standoff, the Soviets blinked and withdrew the missiles.

"We literally looked down the gun barrel into nuclear war," former
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said in the documentary film, "The
Fog of War."

"In the end, we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war."

The missile crisis is merely the best known of the close calls with
nuclear war. There have been at least four others.

"All four incidents were very brief, probably lasting less than 10
minutes each," said Geoffrey Forden, a strategic weapons expert in the
security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

- On Nov. 9, 1979, in what Forden calls "the training tape incident,"
three command posts showed a massive Soviet nuclear strike headed
toward the United States.

American intercontinental ballistic missiles were alerted, jet
fighters were scrambled, and an airborne command center - known as the
president's "doomsday plane" - took to the air, although without the
president aboard.

When ground-based radars showed no incoming missiles, no counterattack
was launched. It was later determined that a training tape simulating a
Soviet attack had been mistakenly inserted into the Pentagon's computer
system.

- Seven months later, on June 3, 1980, there was an alert of another
Soviet attack, although there was no discernible pattern to the strike.

"The displays would show that two missiles had been launched, then
zero missiles, then 200 missiles," Forden wrote in a study of the four
false alarms. The haphazard nature of the data quickly convinced
analysts that there was a glitch in the system.

An investigation showed that a computer chip had gone haywire.

- The so-called "autumn equinox incident" took place Sept. 26, 1983,
when the Soviet Union's new satellite warning system detected five
Minuteman missiles heading toward Moscow.

But the commander in the Soviet early-warning bunker went with his
instincts, overrode his computer and told his superiors up the line it
was a false alarm. The Soviet brass stood down their missiles.

What had the satellite really seen? Sunlight reflected off some clouds
over Minuteman launch silos in Montana.

- On Jan. 25, 1995, Norwegian scientists launched a large "sounding
rocket" to collect atmospheric data on the Northern Lights. The rocket
was headed away from Russia, but Russian radar technicians thought it
could be a U.S. Trident submarine-launched missile intending "to blind
Russian radars by detonating a nuclear warhead high in the atmosphere,"
Forden said.

Russia's early warning satellites showed no confirmation of a U.S.
attack, and the crisis was defused.

--------

Man who saved America now living quiet life in Russia

By Mark McDonald
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10433534.htm

FRIAZINO, Russia - The man who saved America - and probably the world
- is living out his days on a measly pension in a dank apartment in a
forlorn suburb of Moscow. He has a bad stomach, varicose veins and a
mangy, spotted dog named Jack the Ripper.

Stanislav Petrov has a small life now. He takes Jack for walks, makes
a medicinal tea from herbs he picks in a nearby park and harangues his
34-year-old son about getting off the computer and finding a
girlfriend.

There was a time when Petrov, now 65 and a widower, was almost larger
than life. He was a privileged member of the Soviet Union's military
elite, a lieutenant colonel on the fast track to a generalship. He was
educated, squared away and trustworthy, and that's why he was in the
commander's chair on Sept. 26, 1983, the night the world nearly blew
apart.

Tensions were high: Three weeks earlier, on Sept. 1, Soviet fighters
had shot down a Korean airliner, killing all 269 people aboard.

Petrov was in charge of the secret bunker where a team of 120
technicians and military officers monitored the Soviet Union's early
warning system. It was just after midnight when a new satellite array
known as Oko, or The Eye, spotted five U.S. missiles heading toward
Moscow. The Eye discerned they were Minuteman II nuclear missiles.

Petrov's computer was demanding that he follow the prescribed protocol
and confirm an incoming attack to his superiors. A red light on the
computer saying START! kept flashing at him. And there was this baleful
message: MISSILE ATTACK!

Petrov had written the emergency protocol himself, and he knew he
should immediately pick up the hotline at his desk to tell his military
superiors that the Motherland was under attack.

He also knew the timeline was short. The senior political and military
chiefs in the Kremlin would have only 12 minutes or so to wake up, get
to their phones, digest Petrov's information and decide on a
counterattack.

The son of a Soviet air force pilot from Vladivostok, Petrov had had a
whiz-kid career as a military engineer trained in Kiev. He earned a
"red diploma" denoting top honors in school, then joined the army and
the Communist Party. Membership in the party was the only way to have a
full-throttled career in those days, and he was promoted right along.

He was more techie nerd than communist zealot, more scientist than
military man, and he eventually landed a job working on the Soviets'
first system of early warning satellites. In the Soviet era, there were
few positions more high-tech, more important or more secret.

As the alarms blared, 80 technicians and 40 military officers jumped
up and looked toward Petrov's command post on a mezzanine overlooking
the gymnasium-sized control room. He shouted into an intercom for them
to take their seats and attend to their work.

"I was not sweating," Petrov said, "but I felt very weak in my legs.
Like our Russian saying goes, I had legs of cotton. I was in a stupor,
but then my feeling of duty took over."

Petrov gathered himself and looked at the data coming from The Eye.
Why only five missiles? That didn't fit with either his training or his
logic. He knew that if the United States were going to launch a first
strike, it would unleash hell, with hundreds of missiles.

"Political relations with the United States couldn't have been any
worse at the time," he said. "But to launch such an attack, one would
have to be completely crazy."

So Petrov called his superiors and reported in a firm voice that it
was a false alarm, no attack.

Personally, though, he wasn't sure.

"Not 100 percent sure," he said. "Not even close to 100 percent."

The next 15 minutes, waiting for the Minutemen to possibly hit, were
unnerving.

"Yes, terrifying," he said. "Most unpleasant."

Soviet engineers eventually discovered that The Eye had sounded the
alarm when it spotted what it thought was the engine flare from five
U.S. missiles.

But what had the satellite really seen? Flashes of sunlight reflecting
off some clouds over Minuteman silos in Montana.

A military panel investigated the incident, which was kept secret
until 1993, and they found numerous other technical cataracts in The
Eye. Computer assembly technicians in Moldova were blamed. Thereafter,
all satellite assemblies were done in Ukraine.

No decorations or rewards have been given to the officers who averted
the nuclear catastrophe.

Petrov, who'd gone through the crisis with an intercom to his staff in
one hand and the telephone to his bosses in the other, was later
reprimanded for not filling out his log book as events unfolded.

He was denied further promotion, but Petrov denies that he was
persecuted by his military bosses and Soviet political commissars. He
said he continued to work command shifts in the bunker.

Petrov left the military in 1984, moved to a technical division that
worked on satellites, then retired in 1993 to care for his ailing wife.
When she died of a brain tumor, he said, "I had to borrow the money to
bury her properly."

To repay the loan, he worked as a security guard at a construction
site.



-------- accidents and safety

Port inspection exposes truckers to gamma rays

Posted December 16, 2004 Vermont Guardian

http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/0904/1216.shtml#article1ontguardian.com/dailies/0904/1217.shtml#article1

NORFOLK, VA — Truckers and operators of a new cargo inspection system may be exposed to unacceptable levels of cancer-causing radiation, according to a report in an industry bulletin.

When truckers pick up large metal containers unloaded from ships, they are sometimes directed to drive through a new vehicle and cargo inspection system, basically a machine that uses powerful gamma rays to inspect the sealed ocean cargo.

Most workers who operate the new scanning machines claim there’s no risk, but the long-term effects on drivers who remain in the cab of their truck is not completely clear, according to the report by William Sharp in Trucker News Alert.

Safety and protection radiographic cargo inspection systems require some “localized shielding” to minimize exposure. Operators are supposed to be trained in radiation safety, and should wear a badge to measure any radiation exposure. To date, most operators have received little or no dose.

Gamma rays cause cancer and cell mutations in plants and animals. Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician and co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, claims, “There is no safe level of exposure to ionizing radiation, it only takes one radioactive atom, one cell, and one gene to initiate a cancer.”

Scanning delays shipments and adds extra cost to port operations. Conventional x-ray scanners take up to 10 minutes to scan through metal. Gamma-ray scanners take only a few seconds or a couple of minutes to complete the same job.

To avoid hiring additional personnel, drivers at most ports are ordered to pull containers up to be scanned. At congested entry points, they are told to remain in their trucks, exposing them indirectly or directly to radiation. This can happen many times a day. Some inspectors scan not only the container but also the tractor. According to the manufacturers, this should never be done.

Soon, every U.S. port will have these devices at each exit. Unless changes are made, this could lead to serious health risks for anyone forced to drive through, according to leading scientists.

Rosalie Bertell, a scientist who directed investigations into the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Union Carbide Corp’s Bhopal Gas disaster in India, has studied the effects of low-level radiation on humans. “There is no such thing as a radiation exposure that will not do damage,” she said.

Paul Barham, a Virginia trucker who moves local containers out of the ports of Hampton Roads, VA, sometimes makes as many as a dozen trips to different terminals in a day. “I didn’t realize how bad the radiation was until one of the workers started talking about how powerful gamma rays are,” he said. “I just can’t believe why port management would ignore the health risk of all the workers and drivers out here at the terminal without even a warning.”


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

-------- depleted uranium

Other Substances, Many Possibilities

After more than a decade, there are still questions than answers about the cause of illnesses suffered by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

CHAPTER 6: PART OF THE MIX
 
BY BOB EVANS
247-4758
HAMPTON ROADS, VA. Daily Press
December 16, 2004

http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du6,0,4947116.story?coll=dp-breaking-news

Stress. Pyridostigmine bromide. Bug spray. Permethrin. Sarin. Sand.

Depleted uranium.

Matt Rohman was exposed to all of them.

It happened in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, after Rohman enlisted and left his home in York County.

Now he's left to wonder whether one of those suspected dangers, several of them - or none of them - are why his once-strong body has been falling apart ever since.

The pain and problems began when he was 28, just back from battle. He hasn't been able to work since age 33. Now he's 40, unable to feel anything in his hands or feet, unable to breathe without drugs and unable to play ball with his young son.

Rohman's not alone. More than 183,000 veterans of the Gulf War are on some form of disability, and many of them have no idea what made them sick.

The Pentagon and government wrote off the problem as "stress" until public complaints, a few scientists and members of Congress raised a fuss and brought a change in direction a few years ago. Since then, some serious science has taken place in labs spanning the nation, giving many people involved some hope of progress.

Researchers in Mississippi used high-tech brain-imaging equipment to identify a type of dysfunction that appears to be consistent among sick Gulf War veterans.

Scientists in San Francisco found that the veterans who had health problems had experienced reduced levels of a chemical necessary for good brain functioning.

Doctors at Duke and in Dallas learned that many of the sick veterans had naturally low levels of an enzyme that helps the body fight off the debilitating effects of nerve gas.

In New Mexico, scientists found two problems when rats breathed air containing tiny bits of depleted uranium dust. In one group of animals, the depleted uranium migrated to the brain. Tests on another group revealed genetic mutations thought to be indicative of cancer.

The particles that the animals breathed were similar to the pieces of black dust resulting from using depleted uranium "tank-killing" weapons. The dust is toxic, mildly radioactive and easily inhaled. But scientists disagree on whether it could be responsible for the neurological and physical problems suffered by so many veterans of the war.

Pentagon officials dismiss the notion that the dust can cause health problems. They say the weapons are important and give U.S. troops a big advantage on the battlefield.

Rohman suspects that depleted uranium might have played a role in the loss of his health, but he also considers exposure to nerve gas, the bug spray he was given and other chemicals issued by the Army to be possible sources of the evils he's suffered.

So do doctors and researchers.

And that's part of the problem.

According to a June report on the problems of sick Gulf War vets by the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, 21 research questions remain unresolved. This is despite $247 million in research since 1994.

New technology provides a new look at vets' brains

With so many possible alternatives for what happened and so little hard evidence of who was exposed to the suspected causes, researchers are scrambling for good data, Robert Haley says. He's an epidemiologist and researcher who serves on a Department of Veterans Affairs advisory panel for Gulf War illnesses.

He and Duke University researcher Mohamad B. Abou-Donia say they don't even have an answer for simple questions, such as which drugs were given to which soldiers and where those soldiers were during the war.

Haley says a research effort to finally get a handle on the basic data of exposure is being prepared now and should begin in January. It should have been done years ago, he says.

Government officials almost started the project, but Haley and other researchers saw the questionnaire that they were going to use and recognized it wasn't adequate. It lacked a number of basic questions that will help researchers establish what hazards veterans might have come in contact with during the war.

Among the deficiencies, he says, were questions that would have helped define possible exposure to depleted uranium.

Haley is a former official at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and now is chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He says some of the most important recent research was made possible by brain-imaging equipment invented after the vets came home sick and weak from the 1991 war.

Armed with this technology, researchers now can get pictures of what's happening in the veterans' brains.

Those pictures show that veterans who had the characteristic problems that some people label "Gulf War illness" consistently have lower levels of NAA. NAA is a chemical in neurons, the switches in the brain that permit thinking and processing, including muscle movement, strength and fatigue.

NAA is an indicator of how well neurons are functioning. The sick veterans had about 20 percent less NAA than veterans who didn't have health complaints.

Anyone who'd had such low levels of NAA before the war would have been noticeably impaired and wouldn't have been allowed to serve, Haley says. So it's relatively safe to think that this change happened during their service.

That doesn't prove what caused the NAA level to go down though.

Haley and many others think the most likely candidate for the cause of the illnesses is the nerve gas sarin. The Iraqi army used it against Iran in an earlier war and had stockpiles in 1991, the Central Intelligence Agency, GAO and other U.S. government agencies reported.

After U.S. troops went to Iraq and Kuwait in 1990 and 1991, their chemical-weapons alert systems frequently indicated that sarin was present, the GAO says. But that equipment was often unreliable to prove exposure and prone to false alerts.

Government officials later found that many of the chemical-protection suits given to soldiers were also defective, the GAO says.

Even if the Iraqis didn't intend to use sarin, many experts say they're sure that it was in the air - probably because our own troops put it there.

The GAO says CIA and Pentagon officials have acknowledged that several Iraqi munitions dumps thought to contain sarin were destroyed by the U.S. military during the war. The troops involved didn't know what they were dealing with, the GAO says, and the explosions put an untold amount of sarin gas into the air each time.

'WE PUT THEM IN A BIG CIRCLE AND BLEW THEM UP'

Rohman says that he participated in operations to destroy equipment at some of the sites identified by the CIA and that he worked near others. He also spent about three months blowing up Iraqi munitions and equipment in other places.

"In one incident, we found a convoy in Iraq, several hundred vehicles filled with rockets and ammunition," he says. U.S. Air Force A-10 "Warthog" aircraft firing depleted uranium weapons had attacked the convoy and scattered the vehicles. "We put them in a big circle and blew them up."

In another operation, Rohman says, he and others lined up Iraqi rockets and other munitions in a mile-long stack like firewood and blew them up.

The effort to destroy all those munitions and equipment went too fast to examine the individual items to determine what they were, he says. His unit was moving, moving, moving - ordered to find all that it could and blow it up before the Army had to leave Iraq after combat stopped and diplomats took over.

Now he thinks it's quite likely that some of those shells contained poison gas. But he doesn't know for sure.

Some scientists dismiss the sarin theory, saying there simply weren't the deaths and classic symptoms that the chemical is known for.

But others say the expected reactions didn't happen because the chemical was dispersed in those explosions and resulted in small doses over a large area. They say the chemical still got into the soldiers' blood through the skin, nose and mouth and did its damage, then disappeared from the bloodstream before testing could find it.

The human body has an enzyme that attacks sarin and staves off the effects, Haley says. Some people naturally have more of it, and some have less, but the level that someone has in their body doesn't change over time, and it can't be added later to rid the body of a toxin that's caused damage.

If the sarin from exploded munitions went into the air, it then fell on the soldiers in minute quantities for days, Haley says. He theorizes that soldiers with lower levels of the protective enzyme started experiencing weakness and reduced neurological functions that were barely noticeable, then continued to get worse. Other soldiers, with high levels of the enzyme, went home fine.

This would help explain why veterans with nearly identical experiences came home with totally different health prospects, Haley says.

Rohman and other veterans say their problems did begin with weakness, followed by more debilitating problems as time went on.

ONE TYPE OF PESTICIDE LINKED TO PROBLEMS, IF DOSES HIGH

Sarin is a chemical known as an organophosphate, which simply means that it's an organic derivative of phosphoric or similar acids. Agent Orange, the now-infamous weed killer that caused problems for veterans of the Vietnam War, is also an organophosphate.

Organophosate pesticides were also used during the Persian Gulf War to ward off sand fleas and other biting and infectious bugs in the desert. Soldiers frequently doused themselves, their tents and the sand around them with the chemicals.

In high doses, they've been proven to cause neuromuscular disorders. Scientists aren't sure whether smaller doses cause serious harm as well.

Haley says studies have found that farmers and pesticide workers who use organophosphates have higher-than-expected rates of the neuromuscular disease ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

So have Gulf War veterans. According to the Veterans Affairs Department, they have a much higher rate of ALS at early ages than that of the general population. Haley says that gives some credence to the theory the organophosphates might play a role in Gulf War vets' problems.

Other researchers say chemicals troops used to prevent insect bites, and ate to ward off the possible effects of chemical weapons (including pyridostigmine bromide and permethrin) might be the problem. In the rush to battle after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Pentagon planners began worrying about the possibility of a chemical war and realized that they had only experimental drugs to give troops. A decision was made to give the drugs out anyway, and some caused severe reactions.

Pyridostigmine bromide pills gave many vets sudden, violent reactions.

"When I started taking those pills, my hands went completely numb," Rohman says. "I couldn't hold things. So I just quit taking them."

The U.S. government maintains that soldiers didn't get a high enough dose of any of those pills to be harmed.

Haley, Abou-Donia and others say a mounting body of evidence about toxic chemicals shows the problem might not be that simple.

Scientists have known for years that a person under psychological or physical stress is much more susceptible to illnesses of many kinds than someone who isn't under stress, Abou-Donia says.

The sandstorms and extremely fine sand of the Persian Gulf region add to that stress on the body by irritating the eyes, breathing and other bodily functions.

Add the mixture of chemicals that the soldiers were exposed to, and the result could be demonstrable neurological problems from what might otherwise be insignificant doses of chemicals, Abou-Donia and Haley say.

Abou-Donia and other researchers demonstrated that principle in a scientific paper published earlier this year. They found that the combination of several of those chemicals, coupled with stress and exposure to silica from sand, resulted in measurable changes to important parts of the brain in laboratory animals.

The study included exposing the animals to high-strength DEET, a bug repellent used by many troops in the war. Products containing DEET are the most commonly used bug repellents in the United States. In low and limited doses, DEET is recommended to prevent various diseases from ticks, mosquitoes and other pests.

Abou-Donia's experiment involving DEET and other chemicals didn't include exposing animals to depleted uranium. But he says he thinks the weapons' dusty residue on the battlefield is a likely suspect in the parade of toxins that soldiers were exposed to - and which caused them to come home sick.

"I would think it is part of the mix," he says.

Area veteran tried for years to get depleted uranium test

Even though much more is now known about the nature of their illnesses and possible causes, Gulf War veterans still are having trouble getting adequate attention to their needs, say leaders of the American Legion and the National Gulf War Resource Center Inc., a veterans rights group.

Steve Robinson, executive director of the resource center, says doctors and clinicians at military bases and Veterans Affairs hospitals all over the country haven't been properly trained or educated about possible exposure to depleted uranium. The information that those clinicians are given doesn't include research later than 1999, he told Congress earlier this year, and what they're taught is often biased. As a result, he says, many veterans' problems are being ignored.

Rohman's medical records show he's had that problem at the Hampton VA Medical Center.

He says he's been trying to get officials there to give him a test for depleted uranium for years. Many of his medical records have been misplaced, lost or destroyed by the government agencies that handled them, but his own copies demonstrate that he told VA physicians about his exposure at least as early as 1998.

Kay Reid, who runs the Gulf War program at the Hampton VA hospital, says that should have been enough to trigger an examination for exposure to depleted uranium - and, given Rohman's description of his war experiences, a urine test.

She says she's not sure why it didn't happen then. Just as she doesn't know why it didn't happen this spring, when a doctor at the hospital put a note in Rohman's medical records March 9 that said Rohman "had requested a uranium exposure test."

The medical records show that messages were supposed to be sent from the doctor, notifying Reid that Rohman was in need of evaluation. Reid says she never got that message.

Rohman says he was given Reid's name and office telephone number to set up an appointment for the test. He says he called several times and left messages but never got a response.

When the Daily Press contacted Reid in July, she said she didn't know about his calls. She promised to follow up. Reid phoned Rohman that day to begin screening him for a test. Rohman says he still hasn't been tested, however.

Rohman's problems getting testing are similar to other veterans' experiences, based on a 2000 report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

The study found that more than 14 percent of the veterans selected for a depleted uranium testing program hadn't received testing because VA officials hadn't processed the referrals and made appointments.

The steps for screening vets who want a DU test

Reid says that as of Nov. 12, 603 men and women from southeastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina had been placed in a nationwide registry of veterans who served in the Persian Gulf region from 1991 to the present. The government began the registry in the early 1990s as an attempt to track health trends among the veterans, after persistent complaints about undiagnosed health problems. Nationwide, 86,000 veterans are in the registry.

Over the years, eligibility for the registry has changed, Reid says. Now anyone who served in the Persian Gulf region since 1990 - regardless of their health or whether they were there when a shot was fired - can ask to be included. As of mid-November, five people who served in the more recent fighting there have been placed in the registry by the Hampton hospital, though others are being evaluated and tested and will likely join them, she says.

Between 20 percent and 25 percent of the local veterans in the registry have health problems that are observable but not diagnosed, which mirrors the nationwide average, she says.

When veterans enter the registry and ask for a depleted uranium test, they first see a VA clinician like Reid. She says she goes through a 10-page questionnaire with each vet to get an idea about their exposures and experiences.

Then they're examined by a nurse practitioner, who makes a referral to a doctor, if that's called for, Reid says. At the Hampton hospital, Reid is the nurse practitioner who usually does the exams.

Reid says about half the veterans from the Persian Gulf War whom she's put into the registry in Hampton have asked for a test for depleted uranium.

"They think they may have been exposed to depleted uranium," she says, "but after we go over the criteria, they change their mind."

Reid says she asks people what jobs they had in the war and what kind of contact they had with enemy and allied tanks and armored vehicles struck by depleted uranium. If they weren't on or near the tanks very soon after a weapon struck, they're not likely candidates for exposure, she says.

If they were around a tank three days later, she says, there would be no exposure or minimal exposure - unless they went in the tank for extended periods.

"It's not something that's just floating in the air," she says. "You have to be around the tank within an hour of it being hit."

The Army's Environmental Policy Institute told Congress that bits of depleted uranium have been found as far as 400 meters (1,320 feet) downwind from experimental explosions.

The Canadian military's testing found that the particles can be suspended in the air for hours after an explosion.

U.S. military training programs say anyone going within 50 meters of a vehicle struck by a depleted uranium weapon should wear protective clothing and a breather mask, no matter how long after the explosion.

Ultimately, Reid says, she decides to give the tests to only 1 percent or 2 percent of the vets. If they insist, they can get the test, anyway.

Of those tested through her office, "We have not identified anyone here who actually had depleted uranium in their system," she says.

'If you don't look, you won't find'

Pentagon officials say the vast majority of the samples that they get don't contain enough total uranium, depleted or otherwise, to warrant further examination to determine whether depleted uranium is present. The military's testing program is also incapable of identifying small quantities of depleted uranium in veterans' urine samples and can never be used as a definitive test of exposure - only a test of what the military has deemed potentially unhealthy exposure.

Labs in Britain and Germany have developed methods much more capable of detecting depleted uranium, but the U.S. military isn't interested in copying them. Robinson and other critics of the military's handling of exposure issues say this is an important part of the problem.

The military has been telling people for years that the tests showed no exposure to depleted uranium when all that can be said for sure is that the tests chosen by the U.S. government are unable to detect it.

"If you don't look, you won't find," Robinson says.

Robinson and other veterans advocates say the problem is being repeated in the current war, with inadequate testing of troops before and immediately after deployment. This means scientists will once again be lacking important data if health problems arise a year or more from now, they say.

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., is chairman of the subcommittee on national security, veterans affairs and international relations of the House Committee on Government Reform. He says the Pentagon failed to set up the testing and health assessments that Congress demanded after realizing what happened during the Persian Gulf war.

Michael J. Kilpatrick, the Pentagon's deputy director for looking after the health of troops deployed to war, says the current system might not be perfect. But, he says, the military has made marked improvement in collecting data and keeping records that would prove beneficial to researchers if there's a repeat of the parade of ill, undiagnosed veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He says military officials routinely take measurements and test the air, water and soil of where troops are stationed and fighting. Health records are being computerized, he says, so shots, illnesses and other records can be tracked later.

But, Kilpatrick says, the realities of the modern battlefield don't make it possible to say where every soldier was and what the air, water and soil were like at that time. The equipment used for this work also isn't capable of detecting depleted uranium, except in very large quantities, he says.

One of the improvements in baseline health monitoring that Congress demanded in its 1998 law to protect servicemen and women involves a requirement that the Pentagon store blood samples taken from everyone before deployment. That's so researchers can examine the samples later to help compare before-and-after characteristics, in case there are health problems.

But the Pentagon surprised many sponsors of the bill by not doing what was expected.

Rep. Stephen E. Buyer, R-Ind., is a Gulf War vet who helped write the law. He's been critical of the military's response to the requirements. He says Congress spent a lot of time crafting a law to protect the troops and create a baseline of accurate medical information on every soldier deployed, only to see the Department of Defense, or DoD, water it down.

"We've got DoD going out there, doing their own thing," he said in a congressional hearing last year.

The most obvious deviation from the law's intent, Buyer and other members of Congress say, involves medical attention to troops before and after they deploy.

Buyer is chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. He says he and other members of Congress expected every soldier, sailor, Marine and airman to get a hands-on physical exam from a doctor when they mandated a "medical examination" for everyone before deployment.

Instead, the Pentagon decided that giving soldiers a two-page questionnaire, asking them to report any health problems, would be sufficient.

"The intent of Congress was an examination," said Rep. John R. Boozman, R-Ark., during a hearing last year. "And really, the reality is these young men and women basically got less than, you know, a cheerleader or a football player does every couple of years."

Buyer also pointed out that the law required "the drawing of blood samples to accurately record the medical condition of members before their deployment and any changes in their medical condition during the course of their employment."

The Pentagon used blood serum from the standard AIDS test, a part of the blood that doesn't allow doctors to do many before-and-after comparisons to see whether chemical exposures have affected someone.

PENTAGON BYPASSES $100 WHITE-BLOOD-CELL STORAGE

Kilpatrick says the Pentagon is doing everything the law requires.

He acknowledges that the blood serum being stored is of limited value and is only part of the blood taken in a sample. It doesn't contain parts of whole blood that would enable researchers to compare the rate of DNA mutations or many other important attributes with samples taken after the troops return from war.

Right now, he says, "there is no single blood test that would prove useful in screening all service members who have deployed." So the serum is all that's saved. Anything else isn't practical, Kilpatrick says.

Richard Albertini is a cancer researcher at the University of Vermont who's been part of the research into soldiers with depleted uranium shrapnel from the Gulf War. He says the Pentagon missed a chance to gather samples of white blood cells that could prove very important.

A few veterans with the shrapnel have shown increased rates of genetic mutations thought to be a warning sign of possible cancer, he says. To see whether this might be because of depleted uranium, researchers exposed rats to air with depleted uranium dust, and the rats showed the same type of mutations, he says. They also developed tumors.

But unless you can have a before-and-after sample of the veterans' white blood cells, you can't determine whether the change in mutations is the result of something that happened during their deployment or from some other factor, Albertini says. That would be one of the items that he'd identify as valuable, if keeping data for a baseline of health was the goal.

It isn't difficult and isn't very expensive to keep those white-blood-cell samples either, he says. "We do it all the time," he says, and it costs less than $100 a sample. Several members of Congress tried to put more specific requirements for blood samples into law this year, in response to the Pentagon's decisions. But a majority were concerned with putting too many mandates on the military in the midst of a war, so there was little specific guidance enacted for the blood-storage program.

Kilpatrick acknowledges that the system for protecting troops is evolving and isn't as good as it should be yet.

But when it comes to keeping records and data on health issues, he says, "we are light-years ahead," compared with the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

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Depleted uranium used during both gulf wars is a potent threat
Some scientists dispute Pentagon's claim weapons' component imposes no serious health risk.

Copley Press
By Helen Thomas
December 16, 2004

http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/articles/1146047.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 byproduct from the industrial process 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, 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.

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.

"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.

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 greater than 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 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 is a Washington-based columnist with Hearst Newspapers. Her e-mail address is hthomas@hearstdc.com.

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Soldier’s Heart

Thousands of Iraq War veterans face serious psychological problems and a system ill prepared to help them.

FW Weekly

By Dan Frosch and Peter Gorman

December 15, 2004

http://www.fwweekly.com/issues/2004-12-15/feature.asp

Williams: ‘I wanted to talk to someone who knew what it was like over there.’ (Photo by Scott Latham)
Matthew Williams was 19 years old when he enlisted in the Army in 2002. While he wanted to fight for freedom, he didn’t want to kill anyone, so he joined the medic corps. “I thought I might be the difference between someone dying and going home to see their family,” he said. “That was a good feeling.”

The young Arlington man never killed anybody in Iraq, and most of the time no one was trying to kill him. But he saw the carnage up close and bloody. And he and his ambulance crews were attacked as their convoys traveled the roads between the medical hospital at Al-Asad and places like Fallujah, where heavy fighting was going on. He remembers riding shotgun on a military truck one day, his M-16 at ready, when “this guy comes riding toward us on a bicycle with a baby on the back. When he gets close, he reaches one hand behind his back, and I sighted him up because I thought he might have a weapon. And as he rides by, he pulls out his hand in the shape of a gun and pretends to fire at me. The only reason I didn’t fire was because I knew the bullet would take out the baby along with the guy, and I didn’t want to do that unless I was absolutely sure it was a weapon.”

When Williams’ unit finished a year’s deployment in April, they rolled back to Fort Carson in Colorado, where they were given a battery of physical and mental tests, over $14,000 in pay, and a month’s leave, and were told to get ready to be redeployed to Iraq on their return. Williams came home thinking everything was fine. It wasn’t. His sister almost didn’t recognize him. “He was drinking excessively,” she said. “He couldn’t talk to people, would just walk away from them. Then one day our dad’s little dog jumped into the new Mustang he’d bought, and Matt just picked him up and threw him 30 feet. This was a guy who absolutely loved animals.”

When he got back to Fort Carson, Williams asked the Army for help. He was seen by a military psychiatrist. “Dr. Newman said they were short-handed and didn’t have anyone for me to talk with. He put me on a waiting list for therapy and gave me a month’s supply of an anti-depressant ... and told me they might have someone when I finished that.”

They didn’t. When Williams returned after a month he was given a three-month supply and told to come back when that was done. Then he failed a drug test for marijuana, then another, and was offered an early, but honorable, discharge. Williams, who’d been decorated with a Combat Merit Badge, an Army Commendation, and several other citations, took the discharge. He returned home, kept drinking, and finally tried to kill himself.

Joshua Peterson’s troubles took another form. The first time he hit his wife, Kristin, she was asleep in their bed. Awakened by Joshua’s fist smashing into her face, she ran, terrified and crying, to the bathroom to wipe the blood spurting from her nose. When she looked back into the bedroom, he was punching at the air, muttering how she was coming after him and how he was going to kill her. But his eyes were closed.

Peterson was appalled the next morning to realize what he’d done, but he doesn’t remember the night or the nightmares. Neither can he remember punching his wife again in his sleep a few weeks later, this time driving her front tooth through her lip, as he murmured over and over that he’d never go back.

For six months last year, Peterson helped build an oil pipeline across Iraq as a specialist in the Army’s 110th Quartermaster Company. On the same highway where Private Jessica Lynch was ambushed, he saw the rotting bodies of Iraqi soldiers dangling out of their tanks. One time Peterson’s truck broke down and he was surrounded by a group of Iraqi children, some throwing rocks, others toting AK-47s. “I kept thinking, ‘God, I can’t handle this,’ ” the 24-year-old said with a hollow laugh.

Since Peterson came back to Richmond Hill, Ga., in August 2003, these memories have turned him into a man Kristin often doesn’t recognize — a man who lashes out in anger at her and their toddler, a man whose awful dreams tell him to beat his wife because she’s an Iraqi.

There are thousands of Operation Iraqi Freedom soldiers across the country like Matthew Williams and Joshua Peterson. A December 2003 Army study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that about 16 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a psychologically debilitating condition causing intense nightmares, paranoia, and anxiety. Now, after a particularly bloody summer and fall, many military and mental health experts predict the rate of PTSD will actually run nearly twice what the study found, approximately the same level suffered by Vietnam veterans. Others think it could go even higher and note that rarely before has such a dramatic rate of PTSD manifested itself so soon after combat.

Those troubled veterans, by and large, will go knocking on the door of the Department of Veteran Affairs. And many will find that, just like the military that often couldn’t adequately equip them in Iraq, the VA, according to numerous studies, does not have many of the essential services the veterans desperately need.

“I don’t know how many people are going to be seeking treatment, or whether the demand is going to be met by available resources,” acknowledged Matthew Friedman, executive director of the VA’s National Center for PTSD. “What I am confident [of] is that people who come for treatment will get good treatment.”

Yet the VA chronically has under-funded mental health programs and currently projects a $1.65 billion shortfall in those programs by the end of 2007. “If we don’t give the VA what it needs immediately, the consequences will be lifelong and devastating,” said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center.

The emerging scenario is that of a new generation of veterans — many of whom were psychologically unprepared for what happened to them and around them — and of an exhausted healthcare system holding its breath.

While veterans like Williams and Peterson were dealing with their personal nightmares, Dr. James Scully was testifying before Congress about a national nightmare. In March 2004, Scully, a Navy veteran and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, testified before the U.S. House subcommittee responsible for VA funding. Scully reported a dramatic 42 percent increase in VA patients with severe PTSD in the previous five years, with only a 22 percent increase in money spent on PTSD services. The reduction was particularly startling, he said, because more vets are using the VA for psychological help than ever — nearly half a million at last count.

It was the latest blow for an institution that has struggled for decades to fulfill its mission. A mammoth, federally funded agency, the VA’s healthcare system has been treating veterans since 1930. But in the wake of the first Gulf War, pressures on the system swelled out of control. The soaring cost of civilian health insurance combined with an aging population of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam vets, pushed droves of service people toward the VA where everything was cheaper.

In 1995, the VA began realigning its healthcare system and opening hundreds of outpatient clinics. Yet by 2001, only half of the clinics provided mental health services, according to the National Mental Health Association.

Again, funding was a factor. Between 1996 and 2003, the VA noted a 134 percent jump in vets seeking care, with only a 44 percent increase in the budget.

In April 2003, as U.S. troops pushed toward Baghdad, Dr. Joseph T. English, chairman of psychiatry for St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers of New York, told the same House subcommittee that veterans were waiting an average of 47 days to get into PTSD in-patient programs and up to a year at some outpatient facilities.

VA Secretary Anthony Principi had commanded a Navy gunboat during Vietnam and understood PTSD. He also knew that with combat-dazed vets beginning to trickle home from Iraq, he needed to move. He commissioned a task force to upgrade the VA’s mental health services on short notice. (Principi resigned recently as part of the Bush Administration’s cabinet shuffle but remains in office until his successor is confirmed.)

In a revealing June 3, 2004, memo to VA Undersecretary for Health Jonathan Perlin, Principi wrote that the task force had discovered four major deficiencies: Mental health services were scattered, substance abuse programs had been reduced, the VA’s leadership hadn’t been diligent in overseeing the situation, and there was no coherent mental health strategy. Principi ordered VA brass to begin plugging the holes immediately.

While the VA worked on a long-term plan for implementing the reforms, the agency’s Special Committee on PTSD delivered an October report to Congress, warning that with more soldiers with PTSD arriving home, services needed beefing up. During the 1980s, the VA had recommended that teams of PTSD counselors be placed at all VA medical centers. Two decades later, the report noted, barely half of the 163 facilities had them.

The committee predicted that it would take about $1.65 billion by 2008 to fix things. Without extra funding, the committee conceded, the VA couldn’t be expected to treat psychologically troubled vets from Iraq and Afghanistan while still caring for those already in the system. “If the human cost of PTSD and its related disorders is staggering, so are the long-term medical costs to the VA associated with chronic PTSD,” the report stated.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee urged Congress to pump an additional $2.5 billion into the Bush Administration’s VA healthcare budget for 2005. But by November, with the budget poised for passage, it seemed unlikely that the warnings from veterans groups and VA doctors who sat on the PTSD Committee would be heeded.

Those VA doctors knew that, given the chance, they could treat the disorder better than anyone. They have been on the cutting edge of PTSD since it was first diagnosed in a war whose lessons now seem distant.

Sgt. Dave Durman’s girlfriend, Teresa A. McKay, noticed immediately when his behavior began to change. (Photo courtesy of Erich Allen Group)

Sgt. Dave Durman did a tour in the Mekong Delta back in 1969. He was 18 and had joined the Navy the minute he got his draft notice, even though some of his buddies had already died there. “I think it was because I just really loved the water,” Durman said.

Durman also loved working on the supply ship where he was stationed and the adrenaline that pulsed whenever his unit supported the Marines on missions around the South Vietnamese coast. He loved it all so much that he stayed in the Navy for nine years. Then in 1995 he joined the Virginia National Guard’s 1032nd Transportation Company, based 10 miles from his home in Kingsport, Tenn.

In February 2003, Durman’s unit was sent to Kuwait. He was 52 years old. Two months later, the 1032nd crossed into Iraq, charged with shipping supplies from the southern city of Talil 300 miles north to Balad. Other convoys had been attacked on the same route, so Durman and the 19-year-old soldier who rode with him slung their flak jackets protectively over the outside of both truck doors because, Durman said, “you could stab a hole through those doors with a knife.”

During one August haul, Durman came upon a group of Iraqi police who had just shot two children for stripping a car on the side of the road. He drove right by their bodies. “We’re told not to interfere with domestic affairs,” Durman said quietly.

In September, Durman’s unit shipped back to Virginia. It was then the nightmares started — about Iraq, but also about things he’d buried — his abusive childhood, Vietnam. His girlfriend, Teresa A. McKay, noticed that Durman, once confident and kind, now broke into random sweats and angered easily. He drank too much whiskey and bought a .357 pistol. Their sex life, McKay said, went “190 degrees different.”

To McKay, a former nurse who’d worked with homeless Vietnam veterans, Durman’s behavior looked disquietingly familiar. Indeed, Vietnam provides the clinical and historical framework for the PTSD cases coming out of Iraq. Before Vietnam, treatment of a soldier for the psychological effects of battle was not really treatment at all, even though PTSD had long been acknowledged under a variety of names.

In 1871, former Union Army medic J.M. Da Costa wrote about a stress disorder caused by heavy fighting. He called it “irritable heart,” a name changed shortly thereafter to “soldier’s heart.” During World War I, veterans returning home with soldier’s heart were told by military doctors that they had “shell shock” or “combat neurosis.”

After World War II, according to VA psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, tens of thousands of soldiers were hospitalized with psychiatric problems; doctors diagnosed the majority with paranoid schizophrenia. “The diagnostic spirit which prevailed was based on Plato’s idea that if you had good parentage, good genes, a good education, then no bad things could shake you from the path of virtue,” Shay said.

During Vietnam, that Platonic ideal began to shift. In 1970, 20 young vets from the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War asked former Army psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton to speak with them about the war. The vets didn’t trust the VA or the military but knew they needed to calm the devils they’d brought home.

Lifton, who had studied Hiroshima survivors, began meeting in New York with the group in what became known as “rap sessions.” He was shocked by the extent of the veterans’ traumas. “These men talked about a particular combat situation that had a level of extremity which was new, even to me,” he said.

Prompted by the rap sessions, VVAW opened up dozens of “storefront” counseling centers — places where Vietnam veterans could speak with other vets about their experiences, a crucial part of treating PTSD. Still, despite the growing number of vets clearly suffering, the VA wouldn’t accept PTSD as a diagnosis. “This was because many of them were talking about atrocities, and that process was associated with a political view of the war,” Lifton said.

Finally, in 1979, the VA opened up its own network of storefront vet centers. A year later, the American Psychiatric Association recognized PTSD as a legitimate medical diagnosis. And when the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study concluded in 1988 that 30 percent of Vietnam vets suffered from PTSD, not many were surprised. By then, Lifton (who never worked for the VA) and individual VA psychiatrists like Matthew Friedman had become leading experts on PTSD, helping push the condition into psychiatric and public consciousness.

Through group and individual therapy, and sometimes medication, the VA for some time now has been helping psychically wounded veterans to heal, though the process could take years. But by the time U.S. soldiers set foot on Iraqi soil, the VA’s failure to keep up with the enormous growth of its clientele was already causing advancements in PTSD treatment to be compromised.

A new conflict, which bore an uneasy resemblance to Vietnam, would test those advancements even further.

As Crystal Luker tells it, May 5, 2004, was the day her husband’s platoon ran into trouble.

As usual, on that afternoon, Spec. Ron Luker, 27, was patrolling a section of Baghdad with his 1st Cavalry Division platoon, whose stateside home is Fort Hood in central Texas. “There was a lieutenant in the first Humvee, Ron was in the second, and his platoon sergeant was in the third with a group of privates,” Crystal said. A 19-year-old specialist from Tulsa named James Marshall, whom Ron had been looking after, also rode in the third Humvee. As the convoy snaked through a teeming Baghdad street market, there was an explosion.

“The lieutenant was yelling over the radio for all of them to haul ass back to the base because they were coming under fire,” Crystal said. When Luker looked behind him, he was horrified. The third Humvee was gone. He flipped his vehicle around and hurtled back down the street.

Crystal said Luker told her that when they found the Humvee, the force of the blast had blown the flesh from two of the privates all over the seats. In the back, Luker found Marshall, wrapped around the vehicle’s 50 caliber gun. “When Ron tried pulling James’ body out, his hands just went right inside of him. He pulled James’ flak jacket back and his chest was gone.”

Before that day, Luker had called and written home religiously, unburdening himself to the woman he’d fallen in love with at a Mariposa, Calif., restaurant four years earlier. But when he came home to Fort Hood for a week in August, things changed dramatically.

That first night, at a welcome-home barbecue, Luker cornered his wife in the kitchen. “He asked why I’d been avoiding him and said that I didn’t want to be around him,” Crystal recalled. When Luker started cursing, some Army friends pulled him away. “You didn’t come all the way home to fight with your wife,” they told him.

As the week went on, there was more arguing. Crystal said her husband accused her of cheating while he was gone. He rifled through her purse and the bedroom drawers” and repeatedly listened to old phone messages, searching for proof. “I told him, ‘You’re scaring me! You’re not acting right, Ron!’ ” Crystal said.

Luker also seemed bothered around his three daughters. In an emotional revelation, he told his wife why. “He said he’d turned into a monster in Iraq. How he couldn’t bounce his kids on his knee when he’d shoved guns in women’s faces and busted into houses and pushed kids on the floor. He kept saying ‘I’m just trying to remember who I was before.’ ”

Ron Luker’s problems fit into a particular trend now evident among veterans of the Iraqi conflict — that of soldiers who are experiencing PTSD almost immediately upon their return from the fighting, as opposed to the usual PTSD pattern of delayed reaction. In some cases, the PTSD symptoms are even more frightening than Luker’s: At Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the elite Special Forces Command, four soldiers — three of whom had recently returned from the Afghanistan conflict — killed their wives in the space of six weeks in 2002. Two of them subsequently killed themselves. Despite the obvious, Army Special Operations Command spokesman Ben Abel was quoted by a respected French news agency as denying that there was a link between the war and the murders. “We don’t have reason to think it was stress-related,” Abel said.

In Columbus, Ohio, three soldiers from the same Fort Benning infantry battalion, which was engaged in some of the Iraq war’s bloodiest early battles, were charged in February 2004 with the murder and subsequent burning of the body of a fourth soldier from the same battalion. A San Antonio soldier from that battalion has been charged with concealing the crime. In a separate incident, another soldier from the battalion was charged with an unrelated murder outside a Columbus nightclub on the same night.

For some soldiers, the demons are closing in even before their tours end. U.S. Army Spec. Joseph Suell of Tyler took his own life two months after being deployed to Iraq and only days after the 24-year-old had e-mailed his wife Rebecca that, “Over here, you never know what’s going to happen next. So I just keep my faith in Jesus and keep my eyes open.” Suell, who’d planned on being a career soldier, was one of 24 American military people who killed themselves in Iraq between April 2003 and April 2004.

VA psychologist Scott Murray says most vets traditionally don’t feel the effects of PTSD until at least 15 months after the experiences that cause it — and it can take years for symptoms to appear. “This early on, PTSD is much higher than anything we’ve seen in previous conflicts,” Murray said. “We anticipate the numbers are only going to keep getting higher.”

Psychologist Kaye Baron currently treats some 70 active soldiers and their families in a private practice in Colorado Springs, near Fort Carson. Many of the soldiers she treats tell her they only want to get far away from their lives at home. “They just want to go off in the mountains,” she said, “and be by themselves.”

Based on clinical discussions she’s had with soldiers, Baron thinks the PTSD rate among Iraq war veterans could spike at 75 percent.

Such a rate, Robert Jay Lifton said, is inexorably tied to the character of the war itself. “This is a counterinsurgency being fought against an enemy who is hard to identify, and that leads to extraordinary stress,” he said.

According to Jonathan Shay, the issue with the most potential for psychological torment is soldiers’ doubt about whether the cause they’ve been led into battle for is a noble one. In his book, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and The Undoing of Character, Shay wrote about how the Greek hero felt betrayed by his arrogant general, Agamemnon, whose actions brought down a plague on the Greeks. The battle experiences of many Vietnam veterans caused them to feel much like Achilles, he said. “If a soldier has experienced a betrayal of what’s right by those in charge, their capacity for social trust can be impaired for the rest of their lives.”

Indeed, Dave Durman said he first began feeling uncomfortable in Iraq when it became clear there were no weapons of mass destruction. He said the soldiers in his unit were furious when General Tommy Franks retired mid-war, while the rest of the National Guard and reservists were subject to the Army’s “stop-loss” policy, which is still being used to extend soldiers’ deployments. And Ron Luker was outraged when he saw Iraqi children playing in human sewage gurgling through the streets while the Army did nothing.

That sense of betrayal translates into what Shay calls the nightmares of “complex PTSD”: nightmares, paranoia, violence, self-hate, and a crippling distrust.

Beyond the emotional stress of killing people in a goal-less war, there are additional stress-inducers being borne by the soldiers in Iraq that will certainly add to the number of PTSD cases the military and the VA will have to deal with.

According to Joyce Riley, RN, spokesperson for the American Gulf War Veterans Association and a former captain in the Air Force Reserve, the anthrax vaccine, exposure to depleted uranium, and the effects of Larium (mefloquine, used as a prophylactic against malaria) are all doing great harm to the troops. “I don’t think there’s any question of that. Anthrax vaccine can cause chronic health problems that resemble the Gulf War syndrome: fatigue, memory loss, headaches, sleep disturbance, muscle and joint pain. Larium has side effects that include paranoia, anxiety, hallucinations, suicide, violence, and psychosis. All of these things contribute to PTSD and suicide attempts. Hell, we’ve got people on death row for crimes we believe they committed as a result of these medications — to say nothing of the uppers and downers the military provides some of the troops. We’re turning these kids into emotional zombies.”

As for depleted uranium, she said, “We’ve got entire troops sick from exposure to it. The U.S. military uses it in shell casings, in 500-pound bombs, and even in the lining of tanks. We’ve used maybe 10 times more DU in Iraq than we did in the first Gulf War. A lot of those troops aren’t just sick, they’re dying. The bottom line is that they’re being affected by a number of things. And they have physical problems. And as long as the Department of Defense denies there are physical problems, they are an army left to die.”

Col. James A. Polo, a physician and chief of the Department of Behavioral Health at the Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, believes those alleged problems are mostly the product of someone’s overworked imagination. “If a kid is having bad effects on Larium, we take them off and give them something else,” he said. “And the depleted uranium — well, I’m not an expert on that, but we’ve been assured the danger is minimal.”

Time will reveal the actual effects of anthrax vaccinations and exposure to massive amounts of DU in the air. And while the military might intend to take soldiers off Larium if they are having any of its horrendous side effects, the reality is that there is not always someone in the field who would even recognize the symptoms, since they so often mimic general battle stress disorders.

One official military policy is adding immensely to the litany of traumatic stress-inducing elements in Iraq: the “stop-loss” program, whereby troops due to return home are told their tours are extended, and many are required to serve a second deployment to Iraq — the first time in modern U.S. warfare that second tours were not voluntary. Yet another stress-inducer: the lack of equipment that many soldiers are dealing with — pointed up most recently by an Army specialist’s much-quoted question to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?” he asked. Rumsfeld’s response: “You go to war with the army you have.”

In a subsequent interview, Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, the deputy commanding general of US forces in Kuwait, said that every vehicle that is deploying to Iraq from Kuwait has at least “Level 3” armor—armor for its side panels, but not necessarily bulletproof windows or protection against explosions that penetrate the floorboards, so common in convoy attacks.

Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company, was hired to help in Iraq with many of the resupply jobs traditionally done by the military, from bringing mail to the troops to supplying drinking water and spare parts. It’s a job they have not always done well.

“Don’t even get me started on that,” said Sharon Allen of Fort Worth, whose son is about to leave for his second tour in Iraq. “When my son was there the first time, the people at Halliburton said they couldn’t bring anything because it was too dangerous. They told my son’s company to come get water if they needed it. My son says the only way he kept his tank running was to steal parts. How are he and his crew supposed to support soldiers on the ground if they don’t even have an operating vehicle?”

One sergeant at Fort Hood — who asked that neither his name nor his unit be identified — said that when he’s training men he prefers to tell them the truth. “I tell them they’re not fighting to eliminate weapons of mass destruction because there were none and are none. I tell them we’re not fighting because Hussein harbored Osama, because Hussein hated Osama and would have had him killed if he’d have stepped foot in Iraq. I tell them we’re not fighting for our freedom because no one was threatening it. I tell them the truth: We’re fighting for oil so that their fellow Americans can drive SUV’s and burn gas. That’s all they’re fighting for. That and their own asses. Then I tell them to get home safe. I just can’t lie to them.”

Since reporting on this story began in October, Joshua Peterson and Dave Durman have started therapy at the VA. They’re likely getting some of the most advanced care in the world. They’re also lucky: Peterson’s mother-in-law knows a VA psychiatrist, and Durman was already enrolled, thanks to his time in the Navy.

These soldiers won’t be alone. So far, more than 10,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have sought psychological help from the VA, and there’s every indication the numbers will jump significantly.

Despite the challenges these numbers predict, Harold Kudler, co-chair of the VA’s PTSD Committee, said: “We’ve never been so prepared,” and points to unprecedented cooperation with the Department of Defense, intensified PTSD outreach, and the 206 vet centers.

But some say that preparation is not enough. “You can only provide the services for which you have the resources,” said psychologist Scott Murray. “There has to be significant improvement in an allocation of funds to make that occur.”

On Nov. 20, Congress added $1 billion to the Bush administration’s $27.1 billion VA healthcare budget for 2005. The amount fell $1.5 billion short of what was recommended by the House Veterans Affairs Committee. And while Congress earmarked an additional $15 million for PTSD, few think that money will make much difference.

“The heads of the VA healthcare networks are all trying to figure out how the hell they’re going to manage,” said Rick Weidman, director of government relations for Vietnam Veterans of America.

As for the VA’s mental health plan, which called for an extra $1.65 billion to fix things fully, VA spokesperson Laurie Tranter said: “We cannot comment on this now. The plan is still being finalized.”

Polo, at Fort Carson, claims that with the mental health evaluations done on each soldier before and after deployment, the Army is doing the best it can. “We offer group therapy for folks who have anger or stress issues, and we have individual treatment for those who need one-on-one therapy. We also have drug and alcohol abuse programs, family relations programs, and offer psychotropic medication to those who need it.”

However, Polo’s group at Fort Carson — six psychiatrists and a total of 35 primary therapeutic caregivers — is dealing with 15,000 men and women coming through the base at a given time, most of them readying for deployment or just returning, which doesn’t allow for much time per soldier.

Polo, who has already been deployed once to Iraq and will go back there soon, is proud of what the military is doing for soldiers therapeutically, but he also admits that among soldiers there are steep emotional barriers to even seeking help. “No one wants to be the weak link,” he said, “and soldiers often feel that if they admit to stress or emotional problems, their fellow soldiers will look down on them, see them as weak. Most studies show that there are a large number of soldiers who won’t come forward to say they need help. They want to tough it out” — like Matthew Williams, who even after his suicide attempt doesn’t admit to having PTSD.

Polo couldn’t say why Williams didn’t get the help he needed. “We [evaluate] a lot of soldiers,” he said. “We’re not perfect. But while I can’t comment on specific cases, I will say that if this fellow had really asked for help, he would have gotten it.”

Williams disagrees. “Soon as you walk in, they’re looking to give you pills,” he said. “I didn’t want pills. I wanted to talk with someone who knew what it was like over there.”

Cathy Wiblemo, deputy director for healthcare at the American Legion, says a veteran’s chances of getting mental help are vastly greater with the VA than with the military itself.

“The military is an infant in this sort of treatment. It’s easier to put those people out and let the VA take care of them,” she said. “The military has had a situation where it’s taboo to even talk about mental issues,” much less treat them.

But while the VA doctors are leaders in treating PTSD, she said, the agency’s funding is “hopelessly inadequate.”

“You’re looking at kids being extended or sent back involuntarily, and the effect of that on these soldiers is very different than the first Gulf War vets,” she said. “Those PTSD figures are going to soar much higher ... and the VA simply won’t have the space, the physicians [or] the psychiatrists ... to provide what they need.”

Peterson’s dream-induced violence, Williams’ suicide attempt, Durman’s drinking, Luker’s accusations about his wife are powerful examples of a similar dynamic. According to the VA, veterans with PTSD are more apt to be jobless, impoverished, homeless, addicted, imprisoned, without a stable family and three times more likely to die younger than the rest of us.

One of the other men with whom Williams served was also put on a waiting list for therapy. He got drunk and wrapped his car around a pole before anyone was free to see him. He was also given an early but honorable discharge. “He’s living on the streets in Dallas now,” Williams said. “Homeless.”

Meanwhile, Williams has met with VA, and said the doctors think “they might be able to fit me in” for counseling. Ron Luker is back in Iraq, and Crystal Luker says she’ll drag her husband to the VA if she has to when he gets home.

Still, all the money and services in the world couldn’t heal the ravages of PTSD for some.

In 1968, a young soldier named Lewis Puller came back from Vietnam minus his legs and parts of his hands, which had been blown off by a Viet Cong land mine. Puller, the son of the most decorated Marine in American history, soon became a veterans’ rights advocate and later a Pentagon lawyer. He married a politician, had two children, and, in 1991, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book called Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet. Popular on Capitol Hill and among veterans, Puller had seemingly risen above the physical wounds and the depression and alcoholism that haunted him for years, to live a remarkable life.

But on May 11, 1994, more than a quarter-century after he came home, Puller shot himself. In the end, the soldier’s heart hurt too much.

Amidst an outpouring of grief, one Vietnam vet wrote an e-mail to Jonathan Shay, which Shay published in one of his books. “I get real tired of hidin’ and runnin’ from the demons,” the vet wrote. “Am I the only one? Has it crossed anyone else’s mind? You think maybe Lew was right? Is it the only real escape? I got questions. I’m out of answers.”

Dan Frosch is a New York-based freelance writer for The Nation, In These Times, and other publications. Peter Gorman writes frequently for Fort Worth Weekly. Barbara Solow with the Independent Weekly in Durham, N.C., also contributed to this story. 


-------- india / pakistan

‘Time to work on N-energy plant’

orissa.net (India)

16 Dec 2004

http://www.orissa.net/news/default.asp?NewsID=17252
 
 	Predicting that fossil fuel sources of the country would be exhausted by the middle of the century, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Dr. Anil Kakodkar has said it is time to start working on replacing thermal plants with thorium-fuelled reactors so that nuclear generation through fast breeder reactors by 2050 can be achieved.

Addressing the second convocation of National Institute of Technology (NIT), here on Saturday, Kakodkar dwelt on the need to look for alternative sources of energy.

Cautioning that the energy resources within the earth are rapidly getting depleted, he said it is necessary that all non-carbon emitting resources become an integral part of energy mix - as diversified as possible - to ensure energy security to the world in the present century.

Available sources are low carbon fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy and all these should be subject of increased level of research and development, he added.

Quoting DAE forecasts, Kakodkar revealed that 50 years from now, per capita electricity generation would reach about 5300 kwh per year with a total generation of about 8000 billion kwh. He said from the perspective of fuel resource position, study reveals that cumulative resource expenditure will be about 2400 EJ by 2052.

Power generation in India which was only 4.1 billion kwh in 1947-48 has increased to more than 600 billion kwh in 2002-03.

Kakodkar said considering the past records, the future economic growth scenario and likely boost to captive power plant sector due to changes in Electricity Act 2003, the target of generating 8000 billion kwh per year by 2052 is achievable.

And it is here that nuclear energy will play a vital role during the next five decades, he claimed.

He said that considering India’s uranium resources and physical characteristics of metallic fuel-based fast reactors, even after tapping full potential of hydro and other renewable energy resources, it would be necessary to meet significant portion of demand from fossil fuels.

But keeping in view our fossil resources, and their projected usage, these will get exhausted by the middle of the century unless additional resources are found, he observed.	 
	

-------- korea

[Year-End Review] Unhappy Memoiries of South Korea's Nuclear Past

By Ryu Jin, Hankooki.com 12-16-2004

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200412/kt2004121617321811950.htm

The international controversy over Seoul’s undeclared nuclear-related experiments in the past were brought to an end with the IAEA chairman’s statement last month, but the three-month hullabaloo left South Koreans with a couple of valuable lessons in the process.

It was early in September when the surprising revelations about the controversial lab tests first hit South Korea, not the nuclear-ambitious North. Just after lunch on Sept. 2, a rumor shattered the languid atmosphere that a ``bombshell’’ announcement from the government was coming.

The rumor proved to be true at 5 p.m. when the science and foreign ministries admitted in turn that a group of U.N. nuclear inspectors was investigating the nation’s past lab tests that used uranium _ one of the two key ingredients for building atomic bombs.

Further disclosures ensued, including one about another significant experiment in the early 1980s based on plutonium _ the other element necessary to create nuclear weapons _ and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducted three special inspections in the 12 weeks before the issue was brought to a close in its board meeting on Nov. 26.

In the initial declaration submitted to the U.N. nuclear watchdog in August, Seoul said it discovered in June that laboratory-scale experiments involving the enrichment of uranium using laser devices had been carried out in 2000. Stressing they were one-off tests conducted by some unauthorized scientists, Seoul stated that only about 200mg of enriched uranium were produced.

But some reports from foreign news media started to overstate Korea’s past nuclear activities with speculations that the uranium enrichment level in the test reached weapons grade, which they argued showed systemic efforts to develop nuclear arms.

Relevant ministries’ poor response in the initial stage even firmed up the growing speculations as South Korea later had to make another acknowledgement. In the early 1980s, it said, laboratory-scale tests had been performed at the now-defunct TRIGA Mark III research reactor in Seoul to irradiate 2.5kg of depleted uranium and to study the separation of uranium and plutonium.

With the six-party talks aimed at dealing with North Korea’s nuclear crisis stalled for months, South Korea’s nuclear issue became another diplomatic problem as major powers, including the United States, France and Britain, wanted the case to be brought to the U.N. Security Council.

Seoul’s diplomatic pitch in Vienna, Washington, Tokyo, Ottawa and other parts of the world to counter the move were commendable, while its efforts to prove Korea’s innocence and obtain nuclear transparency by cooperating with the IAEA were also noteworthy.

After the two-day IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna, Ingrid Hall of Canada said in the chairman’s statement that the failure of the Republic of Korea to report these activities in accordance with its safeguards agreements is of ``serious concern.’’

At the same time, however, the statement said the quantities of nuclear material involved have not been significant, and welcomed the corrective actions taken by Seoul and the active cooperation it has provided to the agency.

Critics say the 12-week agitation clearly showed that yesterday’s friend may not be today’s ally. While Japanese media took the lead in feeding speculations, the Japanese government supported South Korea in the board meeting. Some U.S. hardliners were known to prefer strict measures, but officials say Washington’s role in dissolving the tense atmosphere was vital.

The nuclear fuss also taught the lesson that more stringent measures should be taken in order to ensure transparency in the country’s peaceful atomic activities.

``How can the government be left totally ignorant of such important experiments by scientists,’’ a government official retorted, asking not to be named. ``Scientists should know how their acts could harm national interests.’’

With the world’s sixth-largest civilian nuclear industry, South Korea has 19 nuclear power plants that produce 40 percent of its electricity _ one of the highest ratios in the world.

``Atomic energy is like life itself for our country,’’ Chang In-soon, head of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), said. ``It is an economical, stable and large energy supply resource for South Korea, which depends on foreign countries for 97 percent of its energy consumption at an expense of $30 billion per year.’’

The father of South Korea’s nuclear research program stressed that the peaceful use of nuclear energy by pursuing efficiency and effectiveness must be an inevitable orientation for national policy for the continued and stable development of the economy, ranked 12th in world-class economic activities.

Bound by the South-North Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in 1991, South Korea voluntarily gave up its right to enrich uranium even for peaceful purposes. And it costs the country about $370 million a year to import enriched uranium to be used for fuelling the power plants.

Based on its nuclear transparency, experts and officials suggest South Korea should expand the extent of its peaceful atomic activities when it successfully resolves the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Science and Technology Minister Oh Myung said research activities by South Korean scientists should not be restricted because of the IAEA inspections. ``I’ll foster a favorable atmosphere in which scientists can keep studying actively, while ensuring transparency of the activities.’’

South Korea launched the National Nuclear Control Agency (NNCA), an independent watchdog, in late October to enhance the country’s nuclear transparency. 


-------- missile defense

Missile-defense shield fails test launch of interceptor

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Guy Taylor
December 16, 2004

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041215-112508-3243r.htm

The first test in two years of the multibillion-dollar U.S. missile-defense shield failed yesterday when an interceptor missile set to launch from a remote island in the central Pacific suddenly shut down, defense officials said.

    The test, which cost the Pentagon nearly $85 million, broke down when the ground-based interceptor at the Ronald Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands "shut down due to an unknown anomaly," the Missile Defense Agency said.

    Although one former senior missile tester called it "a serious setback," Pentagon officials and analysts downplayed the failure, saying it did not indicate deeper problems in the system, which administration officials have pledged to declare "operational" by year's end.

    "The start of operations is not dependent on a single test event, whether successful or unsuccessful," said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, the Pentagon unit in charge of designing and fielding missile defenses.

    "Whether we can get a rocket to launch correctly, that's a matter of time," added Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, who co-authored a 2001 book on missile defense.

    Mr. O'Hanlon said the administration no longer faces political pressure regarding the missile shield because the presidential election has passed. "There's no particular urgency to declare operational a system that clearly has some major glitches," he said.

    The United States already has a system in place to stop one or more long-range missiles fired by North Korea. The system runs from missile interceptor bases in Alaska and California.

    Yesterday's test involved the interceptor at the test site in the Marshall Islands, formally known as Kwajalein Atoll. The Missile Defense Agency said a target missile carrying a mock warhead successfully launched from a site in Kodiak, Alaska. About 16 minutes later, the Kwajalein Atoll missile — designed to intercept the target missile — was preparing to launch when it "automatically shut down."

    "We don't yet know why," said Mr. Taylor, who added it "remains to be determined" whether the failure will cause a delay in the Pentagon's declaration of the system as "operational."

    Philip Coyle, who served as the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under President Reagan, said in an e-mail to Reuters News Agency the failure was "a serious setback for a program that had not attempted a flight intercept test for two years."

    Mr. O'Hanlon, however, said he was "not worried," as the United States has successfully launched rockets in the past. The biggest problem, he said, is getting the rocket to work effectively with a "hit-to-kill vehicle" — a body of sensors designed to ensure that the interceptor demolishes its target — mounted on top.

    The Pentagon has contracted Boeing Co. as the "lead system integrator" for the National Missile Defense Program. With funding for missile defense deployment at about $10.5 billion for fiscal 2005, the goal is to develop a system that can protect the United States from an attack involving missiles topped by nuclear, chemical or biological warheads.

    Although the modern framework was conceived during the tail end of the Cold War under the Reagan administration, the United States has been implementing the system since June 2002 when President Bush officially withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Russia withdrew from the treaty days after the United States.

-----

U.S. Missile Defense Test Fails
Latest Setback in Pacific Fuels Doubts About System's Future

Washington Post
By Bradley Graham
December 16, 2004

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A700-2004Dec15_2.html

The Bush administration's effort to build a system for defending the country against ballistic missile attack suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when an interceptor missile failed to launch during the first flight test of the system in two years.

Pentagon officials could not immediately explain the reason for the failure. They said some kind of anomaly prompted the automatic shutdown of the launch sequence just 23 seconds before the interceptor was due to take off from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. Plans had called for the interceptor to soar into space and knock down a mock warhead fired from Kodiak Island in Alaska about 16 minutes earlier.

The aborted test cast fresh doubt over when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would decide to put the new system on alert. That decision had been expected earlier this fall, after the installation of an initial set of six interceptors at a launch facility near Fairbanks, Alaska.

For weeks, Pentagon officials have described the facility as going through a "shakedown" phase and have insisted that the decision to declare it operational would be made independent of the outcome of the flight test. Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's top spokesman, reiterated yesterday that "the test was not connected to any decisions about operational capability." He said Rumsfeld had been "given a very cursory description of the test and the results."

But until the root cause of the test failure is determined, the Pentagon cannot be sure of the reliability of the interceptors that have already been installed or what might be required to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

Whatever the operational impact of the test, Pentagon officials clearly had been mindful that the event would carry considerable political significance given the high priority placed on the program by President Bush. The Missile Defense Agency, which manages the development effort, had gone to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure a successful test, delaying it repeatedly since the spring to scrub the interceptor and other parts of the system of defects.

Those in Congress and the scientific community who have criticized the missile defense program seized on yesterday's failure to press their case that the administration is rushing deployment on the basis of too few tests.

"I think it points out the inherent complexity of the system and underscores the need for rigorous testing before any deployment," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee. "I've been making that argument for months now."

The interceptor system is just one of a number of antimissile weapons that the administration is pursuing. Officials envision ultimately erecting a multilayered network that will target enemy warheads using land- and sea-based missile interceptors, airborne lasers, and space-based weapons.

Since 1999, the Pentagon has conducted eight flight tests of the interceptor system, five of which resulted in hits. Yesterday's test incorporated for the first time the actual interceptor designed for the mission; previously, surrogate interceptors were used.

The interceptor consists of two main parts -- a booster rocket and a "kill vehicle," a 120-pound package of sensors, computers and thrusters that rides atop the booster. Once in space, the kill vehicle is supposed to separate from the booster and close in on an enemy warhead, destroying it in a high-speed collision.

The script yesterday did not call for an intercept but for what defense officials refer to as a "flyby," meaning the kill vehicle would at least pass near its target. An intercept had been a possibility if everything had gone off as planned.

The previous flight test, in December 2002, also flopped when the kill vehicle failed to separate from the booster. Pentagon officials suspended further flight testing until a new booster could be developed, but that effort took longer than expected.

By spring of this year, the new booster was ready, but the discovery of a faulty circuit board in the kill vehicle prompted Pentagon officials to order a lengthy bottom-up review of all components.

  In mid-August, the missile interceptor was again set to go when technicians found a glitch in the booster's flight computer. Replacing the computer created another delay.

In September, program officials announced yet another postponement after discovering modifications that had been made to the interceptor without thorough ground testing.

With everything in place again Dec. 8, the test was put off five more times in the past week as a result of bad weather, first in Alaska and then in the Marshall Islands, followed by problems with a range radar in the Pacific and with a battery in the target missile, according to Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency.

"There's obvious disappointment," Lehner said when asked about the reaction at the agency. "We'll identify the anomaly and fix it. But I wouldn't want to speculate on how that might affect operation of the system. I guess that will depend on what the anomaly turns out to be."

Lehner also said it is too early to predict when the next flight might be attempted. The Pentagon had planned to conduct an intercept test in the spring.

In addition to the six interceptors in place in Alaska at Fort Greely, a second launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California received its first interceptor last week and is due to get another later this month. Next year, 10 more are scheduled to be installed at Fort Greely and two more at Vandenberg.

In Canada, meanwhile, Prime Minister Paul Martin said in television interviews Tuesday night that his country will participate in a U.S. missile defense system only if it does not have to contribute money, no missiles are based in Canada, and Canada has a say in how the system is run.

Martin was pressured two weeks ago by President Bush to end his government's wavering and commit to supporting the system.

Martin spelled out a strong Canadian position. He said he would insist that the United States guarantee in writing that no weapons will be put in space.

The National Post, a Toronto newspaper, predicted that Martin's demands would be seen by the U.S. administration as "arrogant and unrealistic." Public opinion polls in Canada have shown that joining the missile defense system is highly unpopular.

Correspondent Doug Struck in Toronto contributed to this report. 

----

Bush Reaffirms U.S. Missile Defense Plans

By REUTERS
Published: December 16, 2004
Filed at 4:02 p.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-missile-usa.html?oref=login

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush remains
intent on deploying a multibillion-dollar shield
as an ``important deterrent'' against ballistic
missile attack, the White House said on Thursday,
a day after the system's first flight test in two
years ended in failure.

Scott McClellan, Bush's spokesman, did not address
a delay in activating the first parts of the
planned shield. It appeared to have slipped into
next year, partly because of technical
difficulties.

``The president remains firmly committed to moving
forward on a missile defense system,'' he told
reporters. ``Given the threats that we face in
this day and age, missile defense is an important
deterrent.''

In December 2002, Bush ordered the Pentagon to
have the ground-based component up and running no
later than this year. Boeing Co. is the Pentagon's
prime contractor on the project, which would be
stitched into a multilayered defense.

The latest test went wrong when an interceptor
rocket shut down in its silo on Wednesday in the
Marshall Islands in the central Pacific because of
``an unknown anomaly,'' the Defense Department's
Missile Defense Agency said. A target missile
carrying a dummy warhead had been fired 16 minutes
earlier from Kodiak, Alaska.

The Missile Defense Agency had no comment on
future test plans or any new target for declaring
the system operational ``since we don't know the
cause of the anomaly we experienced,'' spokesman
Richard Lehner said late on Wednesday.

The Pentagon has already suggested its schedule is
slipping.

``I'm not constrained by timing, exactly,''
Michael Wynne, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer,
said last week in reply to a question about
switching the system on. ``But we'll see how
(Wednesday's test) goes and then we'll see from
there.''

In eight attempted intercept tests, five have
succeeded in highly controlled conditions that
critics say bear no resemblance to any real-world
situations.

Initially, the system is designed to defend
against North Korean missiles that could be tipped
with nuclear, chemical or germ warheads and fired
at U.S. soil.

The Pentagon plans to spend more than $50 billion
in the next five years on a wide range of related
projects, including sea-based interceptors, a
modified 747 jumbo jet airborne laser and what
could become the first weapons in space.

Boeing's key subcontractors on the ground-based
component are Northrop Grumman Corp., for command
and control; Raytheon Co., for a ``kill vehicle''
meant to obliterate a target by colliding with it;
and Lockheed Martin Corp. and Orbital Sciences
Corp., which build booster rockets.


-------- russia

Putin urges to protect atomic energy from criminals

16.12.2004, 16.57 (Itar-Tass)

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=1568690&PageNum=0

UDOMLYA (Tver region), December 16 - The atomic energy industry should be absolutely safe in terms of the protection from criminals, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a session of the State Council presidium on Thursday.

“The first requirement is tough security requirements to the whole technological process. They should correspond to the highest international standards,” he emphasized.

“Meanwhile, atomic energy facilities should be reliably protected from any criminal demonstrations,” the president pointed out. “Finally, we should consistently minimize the negative impact of nuclear productions on environment, particularly introducing modern technologies of the disposal of nuclear materials.” 

--------

Putin arrives at Kalininskaya N-station to inspect new reactor

16.12.2004, 14.22 (Itar-Tass)

http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=1567510&PageNum=0

UDOMLYA, Tver Region, December 16 - Russian President Vladimir Putin came for the first time to a nuclear power station – Kalininskaya. The new, third power unit was put into operation at the station early on Thursday morning.

The Kalininskaya nuclear power station is situated in the city of Udomlya, Tver Region, some 350 kilometers north of Moscow. Putin inspected the station and then held a visiting session of the Russian State Council presidium on the development of international cooperation in nuclear and radiation security.

The third set of the station has been under construction for around 20 years. Its commissioning was repeatedly put off in the 1990s. Following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the so-called post-Chernobyl syndrome emerged when the development of the nuclear power industry virtually ground to a standstill, and construction of new nuclear station was discontinued. Then, this syndrome was overcome, but financial difficulties popped up. Construction of a power unit at a nuclear station is estimated at 1.5-2.5 billion US dollars on the world market.

Two units, which were commissioned in 1984 and 1986, now operates at the Kalininskaya station. Under the project, the station is to consist of four blocks.

Incidentally, the Russian leader visited the turbine hall of the third unit and inspected the control board.

The officer on duty told the president that the present unit capacity is now 180 mW while the design capacity is 1,000 mW.

The control board was manufactured only by Russian producers and with the use of only Russian technologies. The nuclear power station has over 5,000 people on its payroll. The station contributes the main part of revenues to the city and district budgets as well as produces nearly 66 percent of electricity, generated in the Tver Region.

Speaking at the meeting of the State Council presidium on Thursday, the president said that Russia stockpiled over 70 million tonnes of solid radioactive waste. “The infrastructure of their processing has been insufficiently developed so far,” the Russian chief executive emphasized.

“The volume of processed waste more than doubled as against 2001, but absolute rates of processing are still very low,” the head of state emphasized. 



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

Nuclear argument ignored key fact

December 16. 2004 Christian Science Monitor 
8:00AM, EARL C. KLAUBERT, Northwood - Letter

http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041216/REPOSITORY/412160349/1029/OPINION03

Re "Fight global warming by . . . nuclear plants,"ConcordMonitor, Dec. 10: I agree with Professor Berg's argument for building more nuclear power plants. However, his argument is incomplete.

Much of the public opposition to nuclear power stems from the generation of massive amounts of depleted nuclear fuel rods that are stored above ground, and the questionable adequacy of the nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nev., on which we have spent (wasted?) billions of dollars. The problem is the long half-life, up to a quarter million years, of some wastes.

The public generally does not know that a complete and short-term solution to this problem, without long-term storage, exists.

It has been known and ignored from the time of President Carter's moralistic high-horse refusal to build breeder reactors. It was published in ScientificAmerican at that time and has been confirmed to me by military officers and others trained in nuclear power. Carter's objection was that breeder reactors could be used to create more plutonium. France has been using them for this purpose for decades.

However, breeder reactors can be used, if operated off-optimum, to transmute and destroy any and all radioactive elements in a reasonably short time. The ultimate products would be non-hazardous, non-radioactive materials. No long-term storage of dangerous materials would be involved.

Professor Berg must know this. Why didn't he buttress his argument for more nuclear reactors by pointing out that this short-term solution exists?

Admittedly, I don't believe this solution applies to the disposal of the radioactive components of such power plants after their useful lifetime, but these are massive integral metal components that cannot be used by terrorists to reclaim and create nuclear weapons. They can be buried or encased in concrete. They are not readily subject to being dissolved and disseminated by groundwater.

Build one or more breeder reactors, operate them off-optimum and consume all the nuclear wastes. That is the answer the public doesn't hear of. Solve the problem, don't store it for millennia.

EARL C. KLAUBERT

Northwood 


-------- colorado

State rejects radioactive soil

Disposal plan is scuttled

By Kim McGuire
Denver Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 16, 2004

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2600594,00.html

State environmental regulators on Wednesday once again derailed Cotter Corp.'s plan to accept radioactive waste from a New Jersey Superfund site at its Cañon City mill.

In renewing the company's operating license, state officials authorized the mill to continue processing uranium and vanadium ores. But the five- year license prohibits the firm from accepting proposed shipments of thorium-laced soil from a lantern parts factory in Maywood, N.J., for disposal at the mill.

Many Cañon City residents opposed the Maywood plan, arguing that it would open a floodgate for more toxic trash to be dumped at the Fremont County mill, about 95 miles southwest of Denver.

"For two years, we've been like the boy with his finger in the dike trying to hold this thing back," said Jeri Fry, co-chairman of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, a Cañon City-based opposition group. "We've always said we were concerned that Maywood would set a dangerous precedent, so we consider this a major victory."

Unless Cotter requests a hearing, the five-year license will go into effect in 60 days.

Responding to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ruling, Cotter officials said they were disappointed the state had once again denied their plan to accept more than 400,000 cubic yards of the thorium-laced soil.

Thorium has been shown to increase cancers of the lung, pancreas and blood in workers who inhale high levels, according to federal health officials.

In July, state health officials denied Cotter's request to accept the first Maywood shipment of 24,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil, ruling that the company had failed to prove it had "adequate procedures" to safely handle the toxic material.

Cotter appealed that decision, and the matter is currently before a Denver judge. While the judge may permit the initial shipment, the new license forbids anything beyond that.

"This is a very complex, multi-faceted process, and there has been extensive involvement from local and state government and by a large sector of the public," said Howard Roitman, the state health department's director of environmental programs. "The licensing process has been both highly interactive and diligent."

Additional requirements or operational changes also were set in the new license, including:

# Improving environmental and worker safety.

# Continuing the evaluation of the primary impoundment liner's effectiveness.

# Monitoring operations for possible groundwater contamination.

Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com. 


-------- connecticut

Report: environmental impact of Millstone plants is negligible
	
Associated Press
December 16, 2004

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-16074355.apds.m0700.bc-ct--nrc-dec16,0,4641428.story?coll=hc-headlines-local-wire

WATERFORD, Conn. -- A report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found that there has been some impact on the fish population near the Millstone nuclear power complex, but overall, the environmental impact is negligible.

The NRC has concluded that the number of female winter flounder near Millstone Power Station in Niantic Bay has reached "critically low levels."

However, ad part of its research into whether two nuclear reactors here should continue operating for another 20 years, the NRC could not definitively link the effect of plant operations to the recent decline in the number of flounder.

The agency said it found a "moderate" effect on survival of fish that get caught in reactor equipment which warrants continued efforts by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, to improve the flounder survival rate.

The NRC environmental report tentatively found the adverse effects of renewing two reactor licenses are negligible or can be lessened through steps the company is already taking.

The report says a number of factors contributed to the decline in flounder, including overfishing and regional temperature changes. Also playing a role is the trapping and killing of the fish in the equipment that draws water for cooling purposes into the Millstone 2 and Millstone 3 reactors.

The NRC will seek public comment on Jan. 11 at 1:30 and 7 p.m. at Waterford Town Hall.

Information from: The Day, http://www.theday.com


-------- ohio

The deregulation myth

Thursday, December 16, 2004 Toledo Blade

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041216/OPINION02/412160381

IF THERE was any lingering feeling that competition in electricity prices would emerge in Ohio, it was erased last week when an auction held by FirstEnergy Corp. failed to beat the utility's current price.

The result is that FirstEnergy's existing rate structure will remain in place through 2008, rather than 2005. The action isn't a rate freeze, however, since the utility, parent to Toledo Edison, still can ask state regulators to pass on increases in fuel costs. With the price of coal at record highs, customer bills are likely to get larger.

The lack of a bidder that could beat FirstEnergy's price of 4.6 cents per kilowatt hour is more proof that the competition envisioned by Ohio's electric deregulation law is a mirage. The bid closest to FirstEnergy was 5.45 cents.

The conservative ideologues who championed the deregulation law in the Ohio General Assembly in 1999 claimed that removing the regulatory shackles from electricity costs would result in competition from many power suppliers and, ultimately, lower rates.

It hasn't happened, and it won't unless the Public Utilities Commission allows the rates to float freely, producing prices so high that suppliers swarm into the market. But the PUCO has been unwilling to do so because consumers would scream bloody murder, and justifiably so.

Instead, the PUCO has been content to let FirstEnergy float along with a rate freeze, in effect for its Toledo Edison residential customers since 1995. The downside of the freeze, now softened by the possibility of fuel price increases, is that Edison rates already were some of the highest in the country.

While PUCO officials gamely continue to contend that rate-tempering competition is just around the corner, FirstEnergy customers will, for 2006, 2007, and 2008, continue to pay surcharges on their bills for the utility's expensive nuclear power facilities, including the Davis-Besse plant near Oak Harbor.

Never mind that those surcharges, considered excessive by consumer advocates when they first were levied, were supposed to expire at the end of 2005. Why they should be continued for another three years is a scandal, as is the statement by William Schriber, PUCO chairman, that the FirstEnergy rate plan is "an OK deal."

It may be OK for FirstEnergy, but it's a cruel joke for the utility's long-suffering customers. They're being told that the competition that will reduce what they pay for electricity is out there on the horizon when the reality is high rates year after year after year.

Rather than continue to allow the PUCO to perpetuate the deregulation myth, the Ohio General Assembly should get busy on a plan to re-regulate utilities, giving them a guaranteed fair rate of return in exchange for reasonably stable rates. The ideologues in the legislature wouldn't like it, but the customers surely would.


-------- washington

Government Locks Horns with Washington State Over Nuclear Waste

All Things Considered, December 16, 2004

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4231902

The federal government is suing the state of Washington over a voter initiative banning the transport of new waste to the Hanford nuclear site. The federal government argues that it controls the former nuclear weapons facility, but Washington citizens say it has done a poor job cleaning up. NPR's Christopher Joyce reports.

-------- 

250 downwinders added to suit

This story was published Thursday, December 16th, 2004

By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald staff writer

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/5918690p-5825850c.html

The number of people suing over illnesses they believe were caused by radiation releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation increased to a little over 2,000 this week.

Federal Judge William Fremming Nielsen in Spokane agreed to add about 250 downwinders to the suit against early Hanford contractors.

During World War II and the early years of the Cold War, radioactive iodine was released into the air during production of plutonium at Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The radioactive iodine drifted downwind and fell to the ground to be ingested by residents in fresh fruits, vegetables and milk from cows that grazed on contaminated grass.

The new plaintiffs in the 1991 case include people who have learned only recently about the lawsuit or who have recently developed a medical condition they believe is linked to the radiation releases, said Richard Eymann, a Spokane attorney. His firm represents 208 of the new plaintiffs.	

When Nielsen took over the lawsuit in 2003, downwinder attorneys said there were a little over 3,500 claims. The contractors' attorneys estimated the number of plaintiffs to be at least 1,000 more.

The numbers dropped as plaintiffs with illnesses that could not be clearly linked with radiation or who likely had received slight or no exposure were moved to an inactive list. Nielsen did not close the suit to new plaintiffs, however.

Many of those filing suit have thyroid disease, including cancer. Radioactive iodine concentrates in the thyroid. The suit also includes people who have other cancers they believe were caused by radiation releases to the air or Columbia River.

In another development in the case, defense attorneys have asked to challenge Nielsen's ruling last month that downwinders will not have to prove early Hanford contractors were negligent to win their lawsuit. That leaves only whether radioactive releases caused plaintiffs' health problems to be decided at trial.

"There are lots of errors that we think mount up to (the need for) reconsideration of the court," said Kevin Van Wart, attorney for the defense.

The court should have held a full hearing on the matter, he said. He also said that contrary to what the judge wrote in his order, it was not clear in the 1940s that radioactive iodine could cause thyroid cancer.

Although Nielsen indicated he is not likely to change his ruling, he said he would allow defense attorneys to file a motion for reconsideration. To keep the case moving, Nielsen has ruled that motions cannot be filed without his approval.

A trial date for 11 bellwether plaintiffs has been set April 18. Nielsen hopes a jury decision on a few of the cases will give attorneys guidance to settle the remainder.


-------- us nuc waste

Utah's Gov.-elect Huntsman stresses: No hotter N-waste

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
Thursday, December 16, 2004

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595112718,00.html

      Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. emphatically reiterated his stance on nuclear waste disposal Wednesday: No Class B or C radioactive waste is to be disposed of in Utah while he is in office.

      "I will commit to you — it won't happen under my watch," Huntsman told the Deseret Morning News on Wednesday.

      Anti-nuclear activist Jason Groenewold has called for Huntsman take action to prevent any material from coming in that is hotter than the Class A waste Envirocare of Utah disposes at its Tooele County site. Although B and C are considered low-level radioactive, they are more dangerous than Class A waste.

      Charles Judd, president of Cedar Mountain Environmental Inc., a planned disposal facility in Tooele County, has said the company might seek to import B and C waste. The property, where no construction has yet taken place, is adjacent to Envirocare, about halfway between Salt Lake City and Wendover.

      B and C waste may not be disposed of in Utah without state permits and specific approval from the Legislature and governor. In a Nov. 17 press release, Huntsman took a strong stand against importation of waste hotter than Class A.

      Groenewold, director of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, called for Huntsman to sign an executive order once he is in office to prevent that importation.

      "Utah's going to be continue to be targeted as a nuclear waste dumping ground as long as we leave the door open," he said.

      Once he is sworn in, he said, Huntsman will have the power to prevent the waste arriving here for disposal. "All it takes is his signature" on an executive order.

      "Huntsman gets the key to the office on Jan. 3. He could kill this thing on day one," he added.

      Groenewold is concerned about the issue because Class B and C wastes are "hundreds to thousands of times more radioactive than Class A waste," he said, citing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He said the NRC estimates that a 20-minute exposure to Class C material without proper protection "is enough to cause a lethal dose of radiation. . . . It gives you a sense of how hot we're talking."

      He worried that a mishap could cause harm.

      Huntsman made it clear Wednesday he is not backing down on the waste issue. His position is the same as it was during the campaign, he said in a Morning News telephone interview.

      "That is, I will use whatever force of office I have to keep B and C waste out of the state," he said.

      A law is already in place with safeguards, he noted.

      If he needs to take action to "effectively nullify" any attempt to bring B and C waste into the Beehive State, Huntsman added, he will. Meanwhile, he needs to review options to accomplish that, checking his legal tools.

      "I would want to understand what I had at my disposal," Huntsman said.

E-mail: bau@desnews.com

---------

Yucca security clearances being expanded

By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN December 16, 2004

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2004/dec/16/517995009.html

WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday announced that it would accept applications for security clearances to classified Yucca Mountain documents.

The agency is expanding the types of people who could obtain the clearances under a new regulation published in the federal register Wednesday. The regulation is set to take effect Feb. 28.

The security clearance applications would be accepted from Yucca project "stakeholders," such as Clark County and other Nevada officials, the agency announced.

The NRC will grant the clearances to people who meet "need to know" criteria determined by the agency, NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said.

That was good news for Nevada officials who have sought to obtain the clearances, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. The NRC has not indicated that it would refuse access to state officials, he said. "At least right now, for us, this hasn't been a big problem," he said.

At issue are thousands of Yucca documents that the Energy Department plans to submit to the NRC as part of its application for a license to construction Yucca.

Some of the documents may contain sensitive information, such as transportation information for the highly radioactive waste that would be shipped on roads and rails to the underground repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The documents might also include information about security at Yucca, or military waste, including plutonium, said Joe Egan, the lawyer who is leading legal battles against Yucca for the state.

State officials believe the NRC should grant key people access to relevant documents from the beginning of the application review so that they are not constantly thwarted in their efforts by blanket refusals of access to all classified documents, Egan said.



-------- MILITARY 



-------- africa

Orbital Completes Third Flight Test For US Navy's 'Coyote' Target Missile

File photo of Orbital Sciences GQM-163 Coyote.
Dulles VA (SPX) Dec 16, 2004

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/missiles-04zzzl.html

Orbital Sciences announced Wednesday that it successfully flight-tested the U.S. Navy's GQM-163A "Coyote" Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target (SSST) system for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) on December 14, 2004.

The flight test was conducted at the Navy's missile test range at Point Mugu in southern California and was the third consecutive successful flight in a series of progressively demanding missions that Orbital has carried out during the last two years.

Orbital was awarded a development contract in 2000 to meet the Navy's requirement for an affordable SSST to simulate high-speed anti-ship cruise missiles for fleet training and weapon systems research, development, test and evaluation.

Yesterday's flight test of the GQM-163A Coyote had several primary objectives, all of which were achieved, including the verification of booster ignition and stable first stage flight, the transition of the ducted-rocket ramjet from booster separation to started inlets, and the ducted rocket ramjet ignition and powered flight performance.

In addition, the missile was flown through a series of demanding medium-G vertical and horizontal maneuvers, as well as high-G horizontal weave maneuvers.

Finally, the performance of the vehicle's laser altimeter was verified by a descent to a 30-foot cruise altitude and successful completion of the mission through the intentional activation of the flight termination system.

Captain Richard Walter, the U.S. Navy's Program Manager of Aerial Target and Decoy Systems, said, "We are very satisfied with yesterday's flight test results. The capabilities of the GQM-163A Coyote are impressive and will provide a threat representative target for testing of new weapon systems being developed by the Navy. We expect to complete the development phase and award low rate production in early 2005."

Mr. Keven Leith, Orbital's Vice President of Naval Programs, said, "We are pleased with the progress of the GQM-163A flight test program. This latest test flight success represents another step towards making the SSST system ready for operational status and limited fleet deployment in the coming months."

The GQM-163A Coyote target missile design integrates a four-inlet, solid-fuel ducted-rocket ramjet propulsion system into a compact missile airframe 18 feet long and 14 inches in diameter.

Ramjet supersonic takeover speed is achieved using a decommissioned Navy MK 70 solid rocket motor for the first stage.

Rail-launched from Navy test and training ranges, the highly maneuverable GQM-163A Coyote achieves cruise speeds of Mach 2.5+ following the separation of the MK 70 first-stage booster.

The range of the target vehicle system is approximately 50 nautical miles at altitudes of less than 20 feet above the sea surface.

The GQM-163A Coyote program represents a significant milestone for the American aerospace industry by achieving multiple successful flights of a U.S.-built solid-fuel ducted-rocket ramjet.

It is also the first successful development and flight test program of a new domestic ramjet missile configuration in over a decade.

Orbital is the only U.S. Department of Defense prime contractor to be both developing and operating ramjet-powered missile systems. In addition to developing the GQM-163A Coyote, Orbital provides the Navy with launch services for the MQM-8 VANDAL SSST.

The MQM-8 VANDAL is based on the liquid-fuel ramjet-powered Talos missile and provides the Navy with a legacy SSST until the more capable GQM-163A Coyote is determined to be operational for fleet use.

Orbital is developing and manufacturing the GQM-163A Coyote at its launch vehicle engineering and production facility in Chandler, Arizona. Orbital's major subcontractors include Aerojet Corporation in Gainesville, Virginia and Sacramento, California, for the solid-fuel ducted-rocket motor and Cei, Inc. in Sacramento, California, for the vehicle's avionics system.

------

Mediators go to DR Congo hotspot
The renegade soldiers have control of the dusty, deserted streets

Thursday, 16 December, 2004 (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4094929.stm

A government delegation has gone to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to try to halt an outbreak of fighting.

More than 20,000 people in the small town of Kanyabayonga, now controlled by dissident Congolese troops, have fled fierce clashes between rival factions.

Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba said the mediation team wanted to establish the motives of the fighters.

In a BBC interview, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has again denied deploying soldiers inside Congo.

Mr Kagame added that Rwanda had no involvement in the fighting in Kanyabayonga, despite COngolese government claims.

The Congolese war officially ended in 2002 after some three million deaths.

QUICK GUIDE

The war in DR Congo

This fighting raises fears that the war, which drew in at least six other African armies, could reignite.

The United Nations said it had repulsed an attempt by armed men to cross from Rwanda into DR Congo in three dug-out canoes, near Bukavu, to the south of Kanyabayonga.

A spokesman said the boats turned round after an exchange of fire.

Rwandan-speaking

Kanyabayonga's inhabitants have fled alongside the defeated forces of the Congolese government, reports the BBC's Arnaud Zajtman from the town.

He says pro-Rwandan soldiers are deployed in the town and have also set up camps on the surrounding mountains, 160km (100 miles) north of the North Kivu